Toronto-based Sun Life Financial Inc. has signed on with Sunnyvale, Calif.-based global technology accelerator Plug and Play Tech Center, in a partnership that will help the insurer bolster its innovation efforts by tapping into the technology startup community.

Plug and Play connects startups from around the world with corporations and investors in a variety of different industries.

“It’s part of our digital innovation strategy,” says Fred Tavan, global head of reinsurance, insurance risk and research with Sun Life. “We want to use the startup community as one of the sources of idea generation.”

As part of the insurance vertical program, Sun Life, along with other financial services institutions, will participate in a 12-week program in which the firms will work with startups at various stages of development. The program provides startups with mentorship and business development support while exposing corporations to innovative new concepts and business opportunities.

The program, which begins at the end of August, will enable Sun Life to explore potential opportunities for acquisitions and joint ventures, Tavan says: “We could potentially be purchasing a startup if we think that it’s a really good alignment with what we want to do.”

Sun Life is the first Canadian-based insurer to partner with Plug and Play. Some of the other insurers listed as participants in the program include London, U.K.-based Aviva PLC; Hartford, Conn.-based Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Co., a subsidiary of Munich Re; and Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.; among others.

The Plug and Play initiative follows Sun Life’s announcement earlier this month of its partnership with MaRS Discovery District, which provides a similar opportunity to collaborate with tech startups.

Innovation is a key area of focus for the life insurance company, according to Tavan: “There is certainly criticism out there that the insurance industry as a whole — not just Sun Life — has not been quick at innovation when compared with other [industries]. We do realize that the population’s behaviour, in terms of buying products as a whole — not just insurance products — is changing, the expectations are going higher and higher, and we need to be able to operate in that world.”

One of Sun Life’s main areas of focus with respect to innovation is underwriting, Tavan says. Specifically, the insurer is exploring ways of making the life insurance underwriting process quicker and less intrusive.

“We want to make it much faster,” Tavan says. “We want to be very easy to do business with.”

Some of the other categories of innovation that Sun Life will be exploring as part of the Plug and Play program include Internet of things, mobile, financial technology and security.

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