Empire Life is pleased to announce the latest additions to our product portfolio CI Protect Plus, EstateMax 8 Pay and Optimax Wealth 8 Pay. Explore our new product offerings below to see how we are helping to meet the life and health insurance needs of Canadians.

• CI Protect Plus
• EstateMax 8 Pay and Optimax Wealth 8 Pay

On Monday 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.

With two weeks left until the end of 2016, we have a lot of pending applications that we are hoping to approve and issue policies before year end so they can qualify for the current (G2) taxation rules. As well as the policy being issued in 2016, Empire Life must receive the first month’s premium on or before the last business day of 2016 to qualify for G2 rules*.

We are pleased to announce that we have amended our guidelines to allow more time to deliver policies issued this year.

Our current guidelines for G2 policies are as follows:

• The application must be approved and policy issued before                January 1, 2017.
• The initial premium must be received at Head Office by                  December 30, 2016.
• NEW! The policy must be delivered and all outstanding settling requirements completed on the earlier of 60 days from issue or            March 1, 2017.

We are working hard to approve applications and issue as many policies as possible to meet the year-end deadline. For any applications that cannot be approved and a policy issued by year end, we will reach out to advisors on an application by application basis to determine the best course of action for clients.

* Based on our current interpretation of the CRA guidelines and ultimately all final decisions are reserved by the CRA.

Senior portfolio managers Lieh Wang , Amber Sinha and Ian Hardacre discuss current market risks and opportunities.

Watch now:

• Lieh Wang - U.S. Market Overview
• Amber Sinha - Global Market Overview
• Ian Hardacre - Canadian Market Overview

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

Provided there are no withdrawals in 2016, we will apply a notional 5% Income Base Bonus to the Income Base.  The yearend cut-off for deposits into Class Plus 2.1 is December 30, 2016 at 4:00 p.m. E.S.T.  This includes FundSERV trades.

Unsettled wire order purchases placed before December  30, 2016 at 4:00 p.m. E.S.T. will qualify for the Income Base Bonus, and the LWA will be adjusted when the trade settles.

Tactical call made by Emblem Oversight Team: Tactically increased U.S. equity; decreased cash and Canadian equity. Download the update.

We have made some changes to our business rules for policy splits in an effort to address taxation changes effective January 1, 2017. See information circular 2016-23 for more details.

This festive season, give your clients the gift of guaranteed retirement income for life with Empire Life Class Plus 2.1. Take advantage of our 5% bonus: Find out more about Class Plus 2.1.

Due to changes in the Canadian Income Tax Act mortality tables will be updated January 2, 2017. There will be no change to the gross amount of income that a prescribed annuity issued by Empire Life generates. What will change is the taxable portion of each prescribed annuity payment, with a higher portion of each payment being taxable under the new formula. To be eligible for the 2016 formula for prescribed annuity taxation all applications and money must be received in good order by 4:00 pm December 30, 2016. All applications and/or money received after 4:00 pm December 30, 2016 will receive the 2017 formula for prescribed annuity taxation. This includes letters of commitment that were submitted in December and funds received in 2017; the taxable portion will be re-calculated based on the new rates.

Did you know that the annuity quote guarantees the interest rate used to calculate your annuity payment, not the income amount.  The income quoted may vary if any of the quote details (i.e., purchase date, income starting date, date of birth etc.) used in the calculation change.

Don't miss our holiday hours of operation and year-end cut-off dates for Retail business.

Read information circular 2016-26 for all dates and times.

Read information circular 2016-27 for the cut-off and pay dates for 2017. In order for commissions to be reflected on each pay, all outstanding requirements must be in Head Office and the policy settled by these dates.

We’re growing! Read about our latest subordinated debt issue.