Participating (par) whole life insurance is a popular choice to help protect financial capital from the risk of changing interest rates and taxes. While past performance does not predict the future, we know that the greatest influence on a policy comes from the long-term performance of the insurance company’s participating fund.
Portfolio diversification
- Sun Life is one of the leading investors in private fixed income (PFI) assets in Canada. PFI typically provides greater returns than similar quality public bonds.
- The strong, risk-adjusted return profile of the real estate asset class provides stability and diversification. Our strong historical returns are thanks to Sun Life’s ability to identify, buy and take care of high-quality properties.
- The Sun Life par portfolio includes money invested in government and corporate bonds. The quality of the bond portfolio is high with 100 percent of holdings ranked as investment grade. Using double-A and single-A issues gives us the opportunity for an enhanced risk-adjusted return.
Stability
- Sun Life has nearly $33.5 billion in participating assets, with roughly $21.2 billion in the Sun Life Participating Account.
- The Participating Account is over 150 years old. This provides balanced exposure to assets purchased in recent years and those purchased over the past 30 years.
- Sun Life’s diversified investment means low volatility and increased stability. This is shown through the standard deviation of the dividend scale interest rate at 0.82% over the past 25 years.
Management
- Sun Life’s prudent management and underwriting practices help ensure that any future mortality gains won’t be diminished due to mortality rating reduction practices.
- We meet our obligations to participating policy owners. In 2024, approximately $266 million in policy owner death benefits was paid from the Sun Life Participating Account.
- While dividends are not guaranteed, Sun Life has declared and paid a dividend to all eligible policy owners every year since 1877, as directed by the Sun Life Board of Directors.
All figures as of December 31, 2024
