Great-West Life, Canada Life ending sales-based incentive conferences

Great-West Life and Canada Life will be ending volume-based incentive conferences for advisors in May 2017 and May 2016, respectively.

The sales conferences will be replaced by development activities, said Nick Pszeniczny, executive vice-president, Distribution and Marketing at Great-West Life, London Life and Canada Life, and Hugh Moncrieff, senior vice-president, Gold Key Distribution at Great-West Life, in a statement sent to all partners.

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Great-West Life’s last advisor incentive conference will be held in Rome, Italy in May 2017. Canada Life’s last conference will take place in London, U.K. this May.

This approach reflects what happened in the Canadian mutual fund industry, where companies no longer hold recognition events based on sales volume, wrote Pszeniczny and Moncrieff.

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“This is a historic day for […] consumers and I welcome Great-West Life’s initiative,” says Léon Lemoine, an advisor and founder of Ethik Management in Montreal. “In response to a complaint that I filed on the subject in 2005, the AMF said to me that nothing illegal was happening, but for the consumer, it was a grey area; namely, that there could appear to be a conflict of interest. Now, according to our code of ethics, an advisor must be completely objective in his recommendations.“

Conseiller.ca asked Sun Life, Manulife, Industrial Alliance and Desjardins for comment. While they all declined to comment specifically on Great-West and Canada Life’s moves, Manulife’s Anne-Julie Gratton told Conseiller.ca, “We are reviewing our strategy related to these programs and will communicate our decision as soon as possible.” A Desjardins spokesperson told Conseiller.ca, “The abolition of sales contests is a scenario the industry has been studying for a while,” and that the company “continues to evaluate this practice.”

Read Conseiller.ca’s full analysis (in French) here.

Conseiller.ca Staff

The staff of Conseiller.ca have been covering news for Quebec financial advisors since 2000.