In the wake of the SARS crisis, interest in Manulife's life insurance products surged.
The COVID-19 pandemic is sparking the same phenomenon, says Mike Doughty. Manulife’s CEO of Canadian operations outlined the situation during a conference call with financial analysts following the release of the insurer's Q4 2020 results.
“We did see an increase in interest in life insurance. I think that is one trend that we'll see around the globe, as we move forward,” he says.
Manulife has taken advantage of the pandemic to digitize many of its processes, Doughty continues. “I think that will help with the ability to process sales and make it easier for both customers and advisers going forward.”
The insurer offers a diverse range of products in Canada. “We sell individual health and dental, that was actually up this year. Our affinity business was up. Our mortgage creditor business was up. We had a very strong first half in our sort of traditional individual life sales,” he says.
Business pipeline depleted
Doughty mentioned that the first half of the year was very good, despite the fact that Manulife’s business pipeline got depleted in the early part of the pandemic when the lockdown made paramedical testing impossible.
“We've seen that pipeline building back up. A nice increase from Q3, up about 17%. We do expect that business is going to come back as that pipeline builds up over the next couple of quarters.”
