Sun Life Financial to Cut 800 Jobs

Sun Life Financial is getting ready to cut 800 jobs from its US based offices, and a good half of those layoffs are expected to be from the people working at the office in Wellesley, Mass and the surrounding area.

Frank Switzer, a spokes person for Sun Life Financial told a reporter for the Boston Herald the following about the location of the job cuts, “It’s fair to say that the vast majority of the impacts will be in the Boston area.”

For those of you not familiar with Sun Life Financial it is a Canada-based company that describes itself as, “We’re Sun Life. We’re a leading international financial services company, building on our strengths for over 140 years.” Though, unofficially the company is well known in the market as a large-scale insurer and with insurance comes risk, often in no small amount.

The spokesperson was also able to tell that same Boston Herald reporter that the company is going to cease some of its sales in the United States. The company is going to halt all of the sales of variable annuities and individual life insurance policies on the 30th of December. There was no word as to what will happen to people with annuities and life insurance policies currently. While the company will honor them it is unknown if contracts will not be eligible for renewal in the future. After that the company is going to focus on selling large-scale insurance to employers and add on insurance through those companies.

The layoffs were announced by the CEO of Sun Life, Dean Connor. He called the layoffs part of a “reposition” for the company. In the statement he said that, “Today begins a new chapter in the history of Sun Life Financial.” And while that new chapter will begin with 800 fewer staffers on the payroll the company remains optimistic about its future.

The company is not currently showing any signs of severe financial distress. They are simply attempting to be proactive in a changing market. They believe that in the current market, which is heavily oriented towards lower interest rates, is not that conducive to the sale of a variable annuity. At least, not if you want to sell them at a profit. In turn, since the company will not sell variable annuities, the sale of life insurance policies to an individual is no longer a profitable market for the company.
Currently, we do not have any specifics on the positions that are being let go. The company has, at this stage only made a general announcement about the impending layoffs. Right now only a small fraction of the people who will be out of work know that they are losing their jobs for sure. The rest of those affected will find out as pink slips go out over the next few weeks.

Interestingly enough the company is still profitable enough to keep the naming rights to the Miami Dolphins home stadium. In addition the company still expects to be the sponsor of the Frozen Fenway hockey competition and community-skating event which will take place next month in Fenway Park.