Manulife Investments has added a new segregated fund series to its lineup. It offers three guarantee options, and retains some of the features that used to be available in Standard Life’s seg fund products.
The insurer says Manulife Ideal Signature Select is part of its "new and simplified" seg fund portfolio. Three separate series offer maturity/death benefit guarantees of 75/75, 75/100, and 100/100. Resets are available on the 75/100 and 100/100 series.
Underlying funds
The suite of underlying funds are managed by Manulife Asset Management, CI Investments, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, OceanRock, Russell Investments, SEI Investments, and there are also several multi-manager funds.
When these seg funds are held within registered retirement income plans, there is also a payout benefit guarantee: provided certain conditions are met, customers may choose to receive a portion of their funds as scheduled payments over the lifetime of the series.
Input from advisors and distribution partners
"Over the last year, we spoke with advisors and distribution partners to find out what they wanted in a segregated fund product," says Manulife Investments president Bernard Letendre. "The number one request was to keep key features of the former Standard Life product, which provides the right amount of flexibility that customers are looking for."
With the introduction of this new product, Manulife closed its Ideal Segregated Funds Signature 2.0, Ideal Segregated Funds, and GIF Select EstatePlus seg fund products to new contract sales effective May 13. The insurer says that current contract holders are not affected by these closures and may continue to make deposits.
