Empire Life

Empire Life (Empire Life Insurance Company) and whose French name is Empire Vie, is a medium sized life insurer based in Canada. They used to trade under the name Empire Financial Group.

Empire Life was founded in 1923 and is based in Kingston, Ontario. Its parent, E-L Financial Corporation, is based in Toronto. It has grown by acquisition and has become one of the top 10 life insurers in Canada.

Empire Life incorporates the life insurance portfolios of a number of companies and groups that used to be active in the life insurance market such as the Oddfellows, the Montreal Life Insurance Company and the life insurance portfolio of the Dominion of Canada General Insurance company.

Other companies that have either merged or sold a substantial part of their insurance portfolios include Colonia Life (later Concordia Life) , Coopérants, Allstate Life Insurance, Confederation Life Insurance Company, Citadel , and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

Empire Life Insurance Products and Size

Empire Life offers both group and personal policies. The products it offers as well as life insurance include critical illness coverage, investment products and Group Registered Retirement Savings Plans.

It has 400,000 individual clients and more than 125,000 members of its 6400 group schemes. It has more than 800 group retirement plans.

There are over 700 employees working for Empire Life, with 500 of them based in Empire Life’s headquarters in Kingston. It has assets of $7.1 billion and premium income of $686 billion.

Empire Life is a specialist in the provision of Group Registered Retirement Savings Plans. It aims these at medium and small employers stressing their low cost and convenient payroll based method. They are unusual in offering to do this with no set up or direct administration costs.

Empire Life Elite Investment Program

The Elite Investment Program is aimed to be a comprehensive investment service that allows a reasonably large degree of flexibility under one roof. It offers access to 21 investment funds, and a number of interest bearing accounts. The investments can use a number of different vehicles, including Group Registered Retirement Savings Plans, Tax Free Savings Accounts and Segregated Funds. It then offers a quick and convenient conversion to either an annuity or their Retirement Income Fund. It is designed to avoid confusion and excessive paperwork.

Empire Life Key Person Insurance

Empire Life is a big player in the Key Person Insurance market, where a company takes out life insurance on employees or partners whose death or illness would have a disproportionate effect on the business. The target customers tend to be smaller and medium sized employees. A similar type of life insurance, also sold by Empire Life, are buy/sell agreements which are insurance backed repurchases of shares in the event of the death or disability of a business owner or partner.

Empire Life Competitors

Empire Life is in the top end life insurance market and does not aim at very large employers. It tends to be in competition with other providers to medium sized businesses such as The Co-operators and Standard Life. It is relatively weak in Quebec and stronger in Ontario and the west of Canada.