Retiring Canada Life president says company poised to double down in wealth management

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For Jeff Macoun, the next best job to playing in the NHL was running the Canadian operations of Canada’s third-largest life insurer.

As the captain of Laurentian University’s varsity hockey team, the Voyageurs, Mr. Macoun looked forward to a career as a pro player, a destiny that awaited one of his brothers, Jamie, who played 17 seasons in the NHL and won two Stanley Cups, first with the Calgary Flames in 1989 and then with the Detroit Red Wings in 1998.

Instead, during his senior year, with no hockey offers in sight, Mr. Macoun was recruited for a management trainee position at London Life Insurance Co. and asked to fly to the company’s headquarters in London, Ont. – his first time on a plane – for an in-person job interview.

He landed the job, but it required relocating to Winnipeg, where London Life had a large office. For the 21-year-old, who grew up in Newmarket, Ont., the pivot to selling insurance was the start of a 43-year career that ultimately led to the top job at Canada Life, which absorbed his first employer in a merger and employs almost 14,000 staff.

It also transformed Mr. Macoun into a Winnipeg Jets fan.

Now, as the head of Canada Life’s Canadian operations hands on the torch to incoming president and chief operating officer Fabrice Morin, Mr. Macoun reflects on an industry that has seen a wave of consolidation, an expansion into wealth and asset management and a rapid rise in the adoption of digital insurance applications, the latter a shift accelerated by the pandemic.

“Sitting around the boardroom 40 years ago, we would talk about how many insurance representatives did we hire, how many life insurance policies did we sell and our exclusive distribution – there was no focus on diversity or financial planning or technology,” he said during one of his weekly visits to the historic Canada Life building in downtown Toronto. “So today, it’s quite evolved. Now, we are focused on doubling down on markets that we weren’t as prominent in and expanding into new markets that we see as opportunities.”

That includes wealth management, he said, as well as reaching out to individuals who may only hold a single product with Canada Life Assurance Co., such as a group insurance policy.

“Those are relationships that perhaps we haven’t talked to them about – other opportunities such as disability insurance or their individual health coverage or retirement income,” he added.

While he has stepped down from his full-time leadership role, Mr. Macoun will remain with Canada Life as a senior adviser to the president until the middle of 2024. The company, he said, is well positioned to gain market share in Canada for life insurance sales, as well as in its wealth and asset management business, which just surpassed $102-billion in assets under administration as of Dec. 31, 2023, up from the approximately $50-billion in assets the company oversaw in 2018.

Currently, wealth and asset management is the smallest contributor to profits at Great-West Lifeco Inc., the parent company of Canada Life, accounting for about 15 per cent of base earnings in 2022, some $500-million. However, in recent years, Great-West Lifeco’s chief executive officer, Paul Mahon, has steadily been transforming the company into a more diversified financial services business with a goal to double that revenue figure to more than $1-billion by 2027.

And acquisitions are key to that growth.

Last year, Canada Life bought two independent wealth managers that bolstered the insurer’s access to the high-net-worth market. One includes a discretionary portfolio manager, a business Canada Life did not have before. The addition of Toronto-based securities dealer Investment Planning Counsel added more than 650 investment advisers, who manage about $32-billion in assets, while the purchase of Winnipeg-based Value Partners Group Inc., a financial planning firm, added another $5-billion in assets. Today, the Canadian wealth division has more than 4,000 financial advisers.

“Advice is more important today than ever,” Mr. Macoun said. “The wealth business is a growth driver for us in Canada moving forward, and we are no longer thinking we are the third-largest non-bank wealth manager – we are thinking that this is a space that we are going to own here in Canada.”

Mr. Macoun’s career started in the group benefits business as a management trainee. He soon moved to Edmonton as a group benefits regional leader, overseeing offices in Northern Alberta and Northern Saskatchewan. Twelve years later – still in his early 30s – he became the youngest national leader for group sales and moved to London, Ont., where he still resides with his wife, Marjie.

That promotion was a “breakthrough moment” for his career, he said, and led to several leadership roles, including vice-president of group customer (which includes distribution) and deputy chief operating officer at Canada Life, before being appointed president and chief operating officer in 2018.

But one of the biggest transformations for the company, and a career highlight for Mr. Macoun, was the 2020 merger of three iconic names – Great-West Life Assurance Co., London Life Insurance Co. and Canada Life Assurance Co. – to operate as one company under the Canada Life brand.

Although Great-West Life purchased Canada Life in 2003 and London Life in 1997, the three companies had operated as individual subsidiaries for more than 125 years. Then, in 2020, the company decided to simplify the business for the 13 million policyholders who held products across the three brands.

“The decision to rebrand ourselves was a home run, and our client engagement scores over the last few years – which have been very high even coming out of COVID – have showed us that it was a great decision,” Mr. Macoun said.

And while he had to retire the London Life brand where his career began, Mr. Macoun said the strength of the Canada Life name has made the company a “dominant player” within all areas of the industry, including individual insurance, wealth and asset management and group health and life benefits.

“My two brothers and I always wanted to be professional hockey players, but I knew there was a good chance that it wouldn’t work out for me, so the next best thing is to land somewhere I could be around people, inspire them and lead a great team,” Mr. Macoun said. “I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to do just that.”