Manulife Enhances Strategies for Canadian Life and Health Insurance

Manulife is enhancing its strategy to serve the Canadian life and health insurance market, focusing on expanding its presence across both mass-market and high-net-worth segments. The company's Canadian leader, Naveed Irshad, has emphasized the need to boost retail distribution and enhance advisor capabilities to better reach underinsured Canadians.

Irshad pointed out that a larger salesforce is crucial for effectively connecting with underinsured consumers. Manulife employs distinct distribution strategies for the mass-market, including partnering with multi-level marketing (MLM) firms like World Financial Group (WFG). These partnerships enable them to offer accessible health, dental, travel, and life insurance products tailored to middle-income consumers.

Despite regulatory concerns surrounding compliance with WFG agents, Manulife asserts its commitment to maintaining consistent standards across all sales channels. The company's risk management practices involve regular reviews to ensure alignment with their compliance expectations for every distribution partner.

In efforts to diversify its distribution framework, Manulife is strengthening Manulife Wealth Insurance Services Inc., a dealer and managing general agent (MGA), by providing salaried roles. This initiative is designed to offer stability and development opportunities for new agents, fostering growth within a structured environment.

Beyond enhancing distribution channels, Manulife is leveraging technology to improve agent effectiveness, introducing more AI-driven tools. Innovations like an enhanced AI-driven underwriting questionnaire have increased instant approval rates for life insurance products, streamlining service delivery and expediting policy acceptance.

Manulife's mass-market strategy is also focusing on online sales channels. Although many consumers start purchases online, they do not always complete them. The company addresses this by using a hybrid sales model, combining digital and in-person interactions to convert leads more effectively. Irshad predicts that this approach will be crucial in the mass market, even as the industry works towards optimizing these hybrid sales techniques.