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The Great-West Life Assurance Company, London Life Insurance Company and The Canada Life Assurance Company have become one company – The Canada Life Assurance Company. Discover the new Canada Life

The Great-West Life Assurance Company, London Life Insurance Company and The Canada Life Assurance Company have become one company – The Canada Life Assurance Company. Discover the new Canada Life

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Freedom 55 Financial is a division of The Canada Life Assurance Company and the information you requested can be found here.

Your large-case resources

by Ryan Marcy, CFA, MBA, Vice-President, Large Case Services, Canada Life

With a background as an equity analyst and portfolio manager, Mr. Marcy leads Canada Life’s Large Case Services team and supports large-case advisors.

When I joined the Large Case Services team, I was impressed by the many exceptional areas, including the Insurance Taxation and Financial Underwriting, Actuarial Marketing Services, LifeLine and Special Quotes teams. They’re a great group who can be key resources for your large-case needs and accessed through your regional wholesaler.

Of all the work my team does, I think they provide the most value when answering questions on how products work. They can also provide illustrations that are not available through our illustration software and support your financial underwriting process even before you submit the application, among other services. As leader of the Large Case Services team, part of my role includes being the resource for questions about the participating (par) account and the par investment strategy.

My thoughts on our par account and investment strategy 

Being relatively new to the team and with my background as a former fund manager, I have a fresh perspective on our participating account. I’ve had the opportunity to meet with the leaders managing each asset class within our par account, and have been extremely impressed with the talent we have managing the assets. These exceptionally smart people are working every day, to ensure the par account achieves the best risk-adjusted return for policyowners. 

The Canada LifeTM par account offers a competitive advantage by virtue of being part of the Power Corporation of Canada family. We have access to expertise and resources, such as Northleaf Capital Partners, a global private equity firm, and Mackenzie Investments, one of Canada’s leading public equity managers.

For real estate, we have our GWLRA (Great-West Life Reality Advisors) national research team, which is dedicated to analyzing key real estate drivers to inform the real estate team’s investment strategy. This research team has helped us out-perform the broader real estate market for the past five years. EverWest, our Denver-based real estate investment management firm, brings a unique expertise in American markets that has helped us expand our real estate holdings in the United States. 

Quality assets are essential for long-term results

One lesson I took away from my role as a portfolio manager is that, although it’s possible to push far down the quality spectrum in an attempt to add yield to boost short-term results, this can add substantial risk that’s probably going to come back to bite you in the long run. Insurance is a long-term product, and our management style has to reflect that. I think we are well positioned to withstand short-term COVID turbulence, and we’re even better positioned to deliver strong returns for decades to come.  What’s clear to me is that there’s no cutting corners when it comes to asset quality in our par account. Our asset managers are focused on high quality assets across the board. They actively push to improve yields but are not willing to take undue risk to do so. The teams are focused on continually improving our fund’s position amid an increasingly challenging external environment, as demonstrated by recent activity to add foreign content, grow our private equity and real estate exposure and execute yield enhancement activities within our fixed-income portfolio.  

I’m excited to continue working with these teams and to providing you with expertise on the participating account investments.