Sun Life Financial Inc. says it earned $785 million or $1.34 per share in the second quarter of 2022, a 13% decrease from the prior year.
The Toronto-based insurance and asset management company says the decrease was due to “unfavourable market-related impacts” as well as its June 1 acquisition of DentaQuest, the second-largest dental benefits provider in the U.S.
Sun Life acquired DentaQuest as part of its strategy to grow its presence in the U.S., where it now has more than 50 million customers.
Sun Life reported total insurance sales of $736 million in the three months ended June 30, up from $710 million in the same period of 2021.
Its wealth sales and asset management growth flows in the second quarter amounted to $57.4 billion, up from $55 billion in Q2 2021.
Sun Life says its asset management business ended the second quarter of 2022 with $905 billion in assets under management, down 7.7% from $981 billion the previous quarter and down 8.4% from a year earlier.
Total wealth sales in Canada (including individual wealth and group retirement) were $4.44 billion in Q2, down 10% from a year earlier.
Individual wealth sales in Canada were $1.8 billion in the second quarter, down 17% from $2.18 billion in the second quarter of 2021.
Group retirement sales were $2.64 billion, up 60% from $1.65 billion in the second quarter of 2021.
Wealth sales in Canada were “partially offset by lower industry-wide retail mutual fund sales,” chief financial officer Manjit Singh said Thursday during an earnings call.
Sun Life reported $19 million in favourable mortality experience in the second quarter of 2022, compared to $79 million in unfavourable mortality experience in the first quarter of 2022. The mortality experience figure reflects the difference between actual experience during the reporting period and the company’s best estimate assumptions used in the determination of its insurance contract liabilities.
“The really big change was a great lessening in the Covid mortality from Q1 to Q2,” said Sun Life U.S. president Dan Fishbein during the earnings call.
“Covid mortality experience actually declined by 90% from the first quarter to the second quarter. So that is the biggest driver from the U.S. It was not a change in expectations,” Fishbein said.
Sun Life also said Thursday that it has reached a deal to sell a U.K.-based division of the company to Phoenix Group Holdings plc for about $385 million.
The insurer says it will sell SLF of Canada UK Ltd., or Sun Life UK, a company that manages life insurance and pension policies but is closed to new sales.
Sun Life said that as part of the deal it will form a long-term partnership to become a strategic asset management partner to Phoenix Group, including the management of Sun Life UK’s $9 billion general account.
Kevin Strain, chief executive of Sun Life, said the sale is consistent with the company’s strategy of growing fee-based and capital-light businesses.