In its latest quarterly financial statements for the full 2025 fiscal year, Great-West Lifeco (GWL) reported net earnings attributable to common shareholders of $3.96 billion. This represents an increase of $20 million, or 0.5 per cent, compared with net earnings of $3.94 billion reported in the previous fiscal year.
For the full 2025 fiscal year, base earnings rose by 11 per cent compared with 2024, reaching $4.65 billion.
Appointed in January 2026, Great-West’s new President and Chief Executive Officer, David Harney, stated that “2025 was a pivotal year for our organization, marked by strong financial results, disciplined execution and leadership transitions that position us for continued growth.”
The company says it “is well on its way to achieving its medium-term base return on equity (ROE) objective of 19 per cent, following the 18.2 per cent result recorded in 2025, primarily owing to strong growth in our capital-efficient businesses.”
Insurance and investment results
For the full 2025 fiscal year, insurance service results totalled $3.4 billion, an increase of $132 million, or 4 per cent, compared with results for fiscal 2024.
Investment results reached $2.1 billion, compared with $2.5 billion recorded for the full 2024 fiscal year. This represents a decrease of $422 million, or 17 per cent year over year.
New classification
Publication of this summary in the Insurance Portal was delayed because the company reorganized its business segments and modified several items in its financial statements, making comparisons with previous years more difficult, except for earnings attributable to the overall group. The 2024 results of the various operating units were restated accordingly.
The company separated the Workplace Solutions segment, distributing its results between the “Retirement” and “Group Benefits” segments. In addition, certain financing charges and related taxes that are not directly associated with the company’s operating segments were reclassified under general operations.
Some activities previously attributed to U.S. operations were also reclassified. The results of subsidiary Empower now reflect its core activities.
The company’s business segments have been revised and now include “Retirement,” “Wealth Management,” “Group Benefits,” and “Insurance and Risk Solutions.” Their results are distributed, as applicable, between United States, Canada, Europe, and Capital and Risk Solutions.
In Canada
For Canadian operations, which include insurer Canada Life, net earnings attributable to common shareholders reached $1.5 billion for the full 2025 fiscal year, compared with $1.6 billion in fiscal 2024. This represents a decline of $176 million, or 11 per cent.
This segment includes four distinct sectors: Retirement, Wealth, Group Benefits, as well as Insurance and Annuities.
Base earnings increased by $44 million in 2025 compared with fiscal 2024. Base earnings rose in three of the four sectors compared with the previous year, with the exception of Wealth.
Group benefits sales for administrative services only (ASO) products and others declined from $614 million in 2024 to $352 million in 2025. This decrease of $262 million is related to the Retired Members Dental Services Plan, for which no similar sales were recorded in 2025.
In the United States and Europe
U.S. operations reported net earnings attributable to common shareholders of $1.4 billion for the full 2025 fiscal year, compared with $1.2 billion in 2024. The increase amounts to $207 million, or 17 per cent.
European operations, for their part, reported net earnings attributable to common shareholders of $609 million in 2025, compared with $930 million in 2024. This represents a decrease of 35 per cent.
The decline is explained by items excluded from base earnings, which amounted to a negative $414 million in 2025, compared with a negative $16 million in 2024. The following factors are cited: the more unfavourable impact of assumption reviews and management actions, unfavourable market experience relative to expectations whereas it was favourable in 2024, and the negative impacts of business transformation and higher restructuring costs.
Capital management
Finally, in the Capital and Risk Solutions segment, net earnings attributable to common shareholders totalled $861 million for fiscal 2025. This represents an increase of 31 per cent compared with the $656 million reported for the previous fiscal year. Growth in new business explains this result, according to the company.
“Atlantic hurricane season was benign in 2025 and, as a result, loss activity was limited despite the California wildfires at the start of the year,” the company states in its management report. “The company expects property retrocessional pricing to come under further pressure in 2026 in the absence of major loss events.”
Real estate
In the presentation made to investors, the company provides details of its exposure to mortgage risk. It notes that its real estate portfolio totals $36.9 billion, representing 14.7 per cent of invested assets, compared with 16 per cent a year earlier.
The residential real estate sector, including single-family homes and housing units, represents 6.3 per cent of the company’s investment portfolio, the same percentage as in 2024. On the commercial real estate side, its weight in the portfolio declined, from 9.5 per cent of the insurer’s investments in 2024 to 8.4 per cent in 2025.
In the single-family housing segment, where the company also reduced the value of its portfolio—from $1.3 billion in 2024 to $765 million in 2025—1.3 per cent of mortgages are in arrears.
The value of office buildings is estimated at $5 billion, or 2 per cent of the portfolio. The proportion of these properties located in the United States declined from 49.5 per cent in 2024 to 46.5 per cent in 2025.
Conference call
During the conference call with financial analysts held on February 12, David Harney highlighted that in wealth management and group retirement plans, assets under administration totalled $3.3 trillion at the end of 2025, including $2 trillion through the U.S. subsidiary Empower. About $1.1 trillion represents managed or administered assets with higher margins.
The company invested $1.6 billion in its share buyback program in 2025 and has already completed $250 million in buybacks since the beginning of 2026. For the full current fiscal year, Great-West Lifeco expects to repurchase 20 million common shares.
Commenting on fourth-quarter results in Canada, Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer Jon Nielsen notes that “group benefits continued to show strong organic growth, along with favourable results in health, life insurance and long-term disability. The profitability of this sector over the past few quarters reflects our consistent pricing discipline.”
As he would do again two weeks later at another event, David Harney also commented on the risks and opportunities associated with the use of artificial intelligence (AI). “The big opportunity is around efficiency and AI industrialization of financial services, and I think that’s pretty well understood. We’re going to see AI having a big impact on all our customer touchpoints and on the operations behind those within the back end of the business,” he says.
He adds: “We will continue to believe that advice will be very important. And we’re very comfortable on the different routes that people get to that advice.”
Reinsurance
Vice-President and Chief of Reinsurance Jeff Poulin then answered a question about the company’s presence in reinsurance, which includes property and casualty insurance.
“Our customers are reinsurers and they’re looking for cover in case of a very big catastrophe. We tend to cover business in the United States, Europe and Japan, the three big insured markets. That is really what we’re trying to focus on. Earthquakes and storms are the main perils,” he explains.
This market is highly cyclical and rates can move very quickly depending on market conditions. The company has been present in the market for 20 years, but it reduced its exposure in 2026 because the rates offered have declined by 20 per cent, Poulin notes.
In June 2025, the Capital and Risk Solutions segment “ceased new business for its U.S. traditional life mortality risk reinsurance line of business in order to increase focus on core markets of structured solutions, longevity reinsurance and catastrophe retrocession,” the company says in its management report.
Jeff Poulin adds: “We’re not going to do business if the returns are less than 17 percent or 18 per cent. We see our role as deploying capital in really good, attractive opportunities. (...) I’m expecting longevity to eventually come back, as well as the catastrophe market. We’re not talking about growing the catastrophe market, but I like the diversification it brings.”
