SSQ buys AXA Life Insurance from Intact Insurance.
Intact Insurance has just announced the sale of AXA Life Insurance to SSQ. SSQ is a Canadian financial company headquartered in Quebec City.
This is part of the continued exit of AXA from Canada. AXA is a large international insurance company headquartered in France, with US operations out of a huge building in Manhattan. I’ve been to their US building during my last trip to NYC, their building is as dominant there as Met Life’s. AXA does not appear to be exiting the US.
When AXA decided to exit Canada, they sold their operations to Intact. Intact is a large Canadian property and casualty company - these are the companies that sell home and auto insurance. As Intact does not specialize in life insurance, they spun off AXA’s life insurance seperately - and they’ve now completed the spinoff of the life business over to SSQ, which does sell life insurance.
What’s the impact of current policyowners? Probably no impact at all. Maybe a change of address as to where you’re sending your payment. But existing policies will remain unchanged; if you’re an existing AXA policyowner there’s no need to be concerned.
What’s the impact of future potential policyowners? That’s more open for discussion. As a broker, I do not offer AXA products currently. I have the ability to offer them and have many current clients with AXA, but their customer service and staff service are so horrible that they’ve actually cost me clients repeatedly. I gather from others in the life insurance industry that they’ve experienced similiar problems and that I’m not alone in my decision to cease offering their products.
I suspect this problem is not lost on SSQ. In the release that was sent to me, the industry professional that sent it bolded a note that said SSQ is committed to extremely strong customer and advisor service. That same industry professional is well aware of the concerns I and others have had in the past concerning AXA’s service.
In the end, if SSQ takes over AXA’s business but not their staff, then I’ll be excited to start offering their services to my clients once again. If SSQ simply keeps most of the existing AXA staff, then I will continue to recommend to my clients that they purchase their life insurance from someone other than them.
(Aside: When AIG sold their Canadian operations to Bank of Montreal, BMO maiintained the AIG staff. Actually, they kept just about everything - the products, the paperwork, the marketing staff, and the underwriters. In that case it was a great idea - today advisors can call BMO and work with all the exceptional staff we had at the old AIG company. In that case, keeping the staff was a great idea because they were known to be exceptional. In the case of AXA, I believe many advisors will continue to be reluctant to deal with SSQ if they’re still dealing with the same staff as they were under AXA.)