New Sun Life chief vows to keep industry leadership

The new Sun Life of Canada (Philippines), Inc. chief vowed to keep the company’s leading position in the local insurance industry while prioritizing digital transformation and growing the agency force.

Newly appointed Sun Life Philippines President Alex Narciso said that he is determined to keeping the company at the forefront of the insurance industry amid changing consumer preferences, a more volatile environment, and new business models.

“To begin with, we want to drive digital transformation to adapt to the changing needs of our clients. At the same time, this is an opportunity for us to leverage on the power of data and technology,” Narciso said.

“We want to enhance customer experiences across all channels and lines of business by simplifying processes and reducing customer effort,” he added.

In the past few years, Sun Life has been boosting its platform offerings, including the launching of a mobile application, online courses on financial topics, and an automated leads conversion program that allows its advisors to quickly respond to inquiries of potential clients.

Among its initial offerings this year, meanwhile, are the new tools that will now be embedded on the Sun Life website (sunlife.com.ph), such as the Online Financial Assessment, Life Insurance Calculator, Investment Calculator, and the Advisor Match.

But as it boosts its digital capabilities, Sun Life will also continue to grow its agency force, which is now 11,000-strong.

“Recruitment is definitely a priority, because the agency force remains to be a significant component of our business. They bring in the personal touch, which is very important because the topic of money is very personal,” Narciso said.

“We aim to have more Sun Life advisors nationwide in order to reach more Filipinos,” he added.

The executive, who also acts as the company’s Chief Agency Distribution Officer, said that with these two components, Sun Life is confident that it would accomplish its goal of serving five million Filipinos by year 2020 under the company’s long-term growth plan dubbed “RI5E PH.”

“We gave ourselves five years to accomplish this, and halfway through it, we are already at 3 million clients. That means we have nearly doubled our client base in just two years, and we are definitely on track to complete this goal,” Narciso said.

“We will continue to anchor our efforts on financial literacy to help Filipinos become more savvy and empowered when it comes to managing their money and utilizing financial instruments,” he concluded.