2016 was the year of the unexpected with events ranging from wildfires in Alberta, to Brexit, to the U.S presidential results. What about 2017? Join our new CIO, Ian Hardacre, and our panel of portfolio managers as they discuss these uncertain times and how the funds are positioned to safely and successfully navigate 2017.

Date: Tuesday, January 24, 2017                                                               Time: 12:00 p.m. ET

Register now.

The release of our newest product offerings: EstateMax 8 Pay and Optimax Wealth 8 Pay, originally planned for January 1, 2017 requires a slight delay in their introduction. An error in Exempt Test calculations has been discovered and will delay the launch by approximately one month.

EstateMax 8 Pay and Optimax Wealth 8 Pay

• Revised anticipated availability: End of January 2017
• Applications will not be accepted until the new release date

Illustration Envision 10.7 update 

• Illustrations for this product have been available on Envision 10.7 since December 12, 2016
• Unfortunately, these illustrations may not be accurate and should not be presented to your clients until the launch of Envision 10.8

Read information circular 2016-32 for more details.

Deposits to a registered plan received within the first sixty (60) days of 2017 are eligible as a tax deduction for the 2016 or 2017 taxation year. A tax receipt will be issued stating that this deposit was made in the first 60 days of the year. This year, the deadline for a 2016 tax receipt is Wednesday, March 1, 2017.

Read information circular 2017-01 for important 2016 tax reporting and RRSP season 2017 cut off dates for all Empire Life investment plans.

On Monday, December 19th we announced the appointment of Ian Hardacre, MBA, CFA as Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer, Empire Life Investments Inc. Ian’s value-focused investment style and strong bottom up approach, focusing on the fundamentals aligns with our investment management philosophy. Since Ian has been part of the team since early in 2016, we expect a smooth transition.

The Information Folders and Contract Provisions for our Segregated Fund products have been revised. The changes include removal of all references to Citi and incorporating the information previously included on an addendum.

The Information Folders available on our web site are the new November 2016 versions for all of the Segregated Fund products.  

For paper copies, we will continue to issue the November 2014 version of the INV943 Empire Life GIF 75/75 & 75/100 (EN & FR) and the INV942 Empire Life GIF 100/100 (EN only) until the stock has been depleted. 

Due to the large amount of stock, the November 2014 versions of the INV942 Empire Life GIF 100/100 Information Folder (FR only) and the INV944 Class Plus 2.1 Information Folder (EN & FR) will continue to be amended with a new addendum (INV942A and INV944A). The addenda will be inserted and shipped with all new orders of the INV942 (FR) and INV944 (EN & FR) Information Folders.  The addenda are also available on the advisor's web site.

There has been an increased focus by regulators and the industry on verifying advisor compliance. Recently, the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) released a reference document on monitoring statutory compliance of advisors. As a CLHIA member company, Empire Life is required to comply and will be putting systems in place to monitor advisor compliance.

Read information circular 2016-28 for more details.

In all of our Life and Policy Change applications, you will find detailed instructions on how to complete our three new Underwriting Question Sets.

The question sets have specific guidelines that vary by insurance age, coverage amount and Adult vs. Juvenile. Only ONE question set needs to be completed for an insured and the application has been colour coded for ease of use.

Please review the question set guidelines below:

• Juvenile Question Set: insurance age 0-17 (9 base questions)
• Adult-Short Question Set: insurance age 18-45, life insurance coverage equal to or less than $300,000 and Empire Life CI Protect coverage that is equal to or less than $75,000, per Life Insured (11 base questions). Note: maximum coverage amount for all in force life insurance coverage’s on a life insured applied for using this question set is $300,000
• Adult-Full Question Set: insurance age 18+, applying for all amounts of insurance coverage, or for insurance age 18-45, who have reached the maximum coverage amount for the Adult-Short Question Set (16 base questions).
• Child Rider: medical information is answered on the Juvenile Question Set.​
• Personal and Health Information: must be completed for all applications UNLESS a PHI has been ordered

That all inbound and outbound calls for our Inside Sales teams are recorded for training purposes?