Insurance brokers may not consider the life-health sector their focus, but the sound of another major insurer admitting that digital is now the driving force behind its business, even in this area, is anything but music to their ears.
Sun Life Canada has been revamping its digital operations in recent times – so much so that it
recently came out on top in a Forrester’s report on digital sales among the leading Canadian life insurers.
Having already modernised its Canada-specific website, the insurer has transformed its corporate website too, as well as its mySunLife mobile app, as it places increased emphasis on its digital campaign.
“Most of our business now happens online,” Cynthia Stark, vice-president, digital strategy, Sun Life Financial Global Marketing, told
Insurance Business.
In the digital age, a website is a company’s storefront, Stark said – as the first place that clients and consumers look to connect with the brand.
“We don’t have brick and mortar like banks, so it’s the website,” she explained. “The website is playing a far greater role in our relationship with our clients. We’re seeing a ton of demand, we’re seeing huge growth in traffic to the site and consumption of the pages.”
As more and more Canadians take a digital path when researching and purchasing insurance, the experience that they have online is becoming more pivotal to sales, Stark said.
“Really the goal of it is to not only make our content discoverable but also to make it easy to explore, and then if you really want to connect with an advisor, we make it super easy,” she explained.
When redesigning the websites, Sun Life focused on creating an experience that is easy to navigate, visually appealing, and has relevant content in simple language.
Going forward, the insurer sees digital as paving the way.
“We see a few levels for digital to play a role across the business which are to digitize our current business model; create more personalization with our clients; and identify new adjacent opportunities for our business,” Stark said.
Sun Life has partnered with start-ups, including MaRS in Toronto and Plug and Play Tech Center in Silicon Valley, to help build relationships in the start-up community, as well as working directly with others, “to help accelerate our initiatives which are in development.”
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