ADP Canada, which entered the insurance benefits business in Canada four years ago, is permanently closing its group benefits administration and brokerage services business, effective the end of August.

In a couriered letter to 180 business clients last week, parent company ADP Canada says it will cease providing group benefits-related brokerage services as of 4pm August 31, 2015. Group benefits administration by ADP Insurance Solutions, which includes services such as new hire enrollments and salary changes, will not be processed after clients’ last August payroll date.

Remaining intact are ADP’s other departments: its payroll processing services as well as other HR-related services, writes Russell Wong, ADP Canada Co.’s chief financial officer.

In June 2011, ADP announced the creation of ADP Insurance Solutions, meant to provide small- and medium-sized businesses with “end-to-end benefits management solutions,” adding the insurance benefit operations to its payroll and HR services.

Laura Mensch, named to head up the national and regional services of ADP Insurance Solutions when it first began four years ago, left the company a couple of weeks ago.

ADP Canada was fashioned after a model adapted in the United States. But responding through a public relations firm, Virginia Brailey, vice president, Marketing and Strategy for ADP Canada, said its “decision to wind down the ADP Insurance Solutions business in Canada is driven by our strategic focus on our core human capital management services. The group insurance markets in Canada and the USA differ significantly.”

Affected clients have been told to make arrangements to appoint a new group insurance broker by the end of August.