Group Savings & Retirement Our value proposition What sets us apart? Our commitment to you. The cornerstone of our operations is one simple premise: create an exceptional customer experience. It s not a program or a short-term goal. It s a philosophy. One that transcends all aspects of our business process, from dealing with external clients like advisors, sponsors and members to our own internal clients. Ultimately, we always strive to offer top quality solutions and all situations are approached with excellence in mind. Our dedication to client satisfaction has earned us a 94.3% Client Retention Rate for all product lines at Standard Life and an outstanding 97.6% Client Retention Rate for the Group Savings & Retirement division. The numbers offer categorical proof that when we give a client our word, it means something. Our core business is the administration of group savings and retirement plans and, in this, we ve earned a reputation for leadership. 71% of our premium income is related to group and individual retirement plans. This not only helps illustrate our business commitment to group savings and retirement but our marked focus on product and service innovations, thereby allowing us to maintain our competitive position in the market place. Simply put, our primary mandate is to deliver premier customer service. This means uninterrupted focus, the constant development of innovative ideas, and stability for our clients and their intermediaries.
Progressive solutions for everyone The driving principle behind Standard Life s leading innovations is evolution. We evolve so that our clients can evolve. By providing members, plan sponsors and advisors with creative solutions for their ongoing fiduciary and administrative responsibilities, we help them grow. This, in turn, helps us grow. As such, Standard Life is continually developing new services and tools to maintain its leading edge in all realms. From straightforward member communications to state-of-the-art educational tools, all our clients and intermediaries are offered creative services and tools as a matter of course. Member innovations Our Avenue Portfolios Well before lifecycle portfolios were offered in the late 90 s and well before target-year funds were offered post-millennium, Standard Life had developed a nine-box matrix concept of various investment portfolios for plan members that already married both the risk profile of a member with their investment time horizon. Our Avenue Portfolios offer the member a simple, cost-effective, well-diversified solution allowing them to pick the portfolio best suited to their individual circumstances. These suggested investment portfolio options can be customizable by either the plan sponsor or their advisor to ensure that plan members are catered to on a client-by-client basis. And, they are fully transparent so members enjoy greater knowledge and control over their chosen investment stream.
What makes Avenue Portfolios unique? Asset Rebalancing keeps the member s asset mix in line with their investment instructions. This means that whether they pick from one of the Avenue Portfolios or a completely customizable portfolio of funds, this feature will rebalance their account, maintaining the asset mix the member chose. Note the recent evolution into a more comprehensive fifteen-box matrix. As the investor matures, the Lifecycle Movement feature automatically adjusts the investment mix of the Avenue Portfolios over time, according to the investor s target retirement age. When this feature is turned on (which is, in fact, the default for Avenue Portfolios), a notice is sent to their home address, approximately 30 days before Lifecycle Movement is scheduled to take place. This allows the member to consider whether they still want this adjustment to take place, or whether they want to turn this automatic feature off. The member VIP Room The VIP Room Standard Life s exclusive password-protected website provides plan members online access to plan information and valuable educational tools, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Members can customize their own home page by minimizing, maximizing or moving items around their personalized dashboard to suit their individual needs and to view their most relevant info, all at a glance. Our member VIP Room won the 2008 Plan Member Communications Award at the annual Benefits Canada competition and most recently, the 2009 Best of show at the Insurance and Financial Communicators Association awards.
Our new Retirement Calculator This web-based Retirement Calculator provides a practical look at planning for the future offering members real suggestions to make sure they re doing everything they can to maximize their level of success in retirement planning. Using a combination of their current data, values that they input and built-in assumptions, the Calculator can tell them what they need to do today to get closer to their goals for tomorrow. Employees can access the Calculator directly from our award-winning VIP Room. Another time saving feature: their personal and financial data pre-populates many of the fields. Your goal: 49,000.00 Your projection: 41,218.59 Gap $7,781.41 Other income $0.00 Personal savings $10,056.61 Group program $14,477.06 Government $16,684.92 The Retirement checkup statement The Retirement checkup is included annually with the regular member statement. It illustrates the value of assets held in an employee s group program as well as their contributions during the previous twelve months. Ultimately, it generates a projection of the value of the member s assets at retirement and includes an illustration of the employee s potential annual income in today s dollars. Market-leading communication expertise Over ten years ago, Standard Life was first to establish a member services group whose sole mandate it was, and is, to provide the highest possible communication support for plan members. Our team, made up of fully salaried and licensed Member Education Representatives (who conduct educational seminars for members) and Financial representatives (who provide on the spot guidance via the Financial Service Centre), is dedicated to providing members with the information and tools they need to build and manage a sound retirement strategy. Members receive a clear, non-biased message at all times.
Plan sponsor innovations The Monitored Avenue Portfolio Program (MAPP) One of our recent, multi-manager investment solutions, MAPP, was conceived to be a monitored, long-term investment solution for both sponsors and employees from day one to retirement, and beyond. With the experts at Standard Life overseeing asset allocation, specific fund selection, and fund re-alignment on a regular basis, MAPP offers a cost-effective, sustainable solution that puts both the sponsor and the employee at ease. Standard Life Express A group savings and retirement program designed with small to medium sized businesses in mind, Standard Life Express is a streamlined version of our traditional offering with MAPP at its heart. Simple and easy to maintain from implementation to maintenance, it offers a cost-effective and efficient retirement solution for those looking for competitive benefits to offer their employees. The plan sponsor VIP Room Self-service features for the busy, technology-friendly plan sponsors make enrolment, contribution and termination processing easier than ever before. The VIP Room for sponsors* is designed to save time and offer cost-effective administrative solutions. It offers one-stop access to information and self-service features that will free up time to focus their daily energy elsewhere. The new site also allows sponsors to make full use of the platform to submit contributions electronically, analyze performance data, provide allocation instructions for forfeited amounts, consult reference information online, and download reports and member information. What s more, the site is growing and developing all the time. * Selected as a finalist for the Electronic business-to-business (B2B) category in the 2009 OCTAS contest
Advisor innovations Investment fund managers We are committed to providing comprehensive information about these managers and their investment funds in a consistent manner to help better evaluate their respective: expertise in various asset classes management style investment team stability consistency of performance Our Quality & Choice investment options offer diversification by asset class, geographic region and investment style and are supported by some of the best fund managers in the business today. Our Quality & Choice (Q&C) fund managers are highlighted below: We continually monitor the fund managers and fund options. Any tracked changes or inconsistencies are reflected in our quarterly fund summary reports and annual Quality & Choice Investment Program Management Report. All managers are required to sign an annual Statement of Principles and Code of Business Conduct. The Correlation Matrix Designed to be used in conjunction with our Performance and style summary, the Correlation Matrix greatly facilitates a comparative analysis of investment funds. By providing the level of correlation between pairs of funds, it helps to guide plan sponsors in the selection of an appropriately diversified and balanced portfolio making the task of assisting them in the investment process all the more straightforward. Our Portfolio Designer Exclusive to Standard Life, the Portfolio Designer tool, was created to help advisors design and document a well-diversified portfolio for their clients. Using a simple approach, the Portfolio Designer actually allows plan sponsors to create a complete investment portfolio all on their own. Including a fund roster made up of an appropriate range and number of investment options, as well as suggested investment mixes, it quickly facilitates any investment decision process for the user.
A partnership with Standard Life. The advantage of over 175 years of experience. The truth is, when it comes to retirement there is no single model to fit everyone s needs. With different incomes, expenses, savings habits and retirement goals, plan members need guidance, a realistic plan and the ability to make informed decisions in order to get where they want to be. Partnership with Standard Life allows plan sponsors to offer simple, flexible solutions and effective educational tools that help members make informed decisions and develop retirement strategies that realistically meet their long-term needs. With Standard Life as their group savings and retirement partner, plan sponsors benefit from our creativity, our commitment to the customer experience and our best practice solutions for fiduciary responsibilities. Simply put, we provide both plan sponsors and members with the key information, tools and assistance they need to develop retirement strategies that work. More about us With 10,000 employees globally, Standard Life plc is a major international financial services group headquartered in Scotland. It provides asset-managing services for retirement, investment and protection to some 6.5 million customers globally. It had C$278.9 billion in assets under administration, as at June 30, 2009. It has offices in the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Austria, India, China and Hong Kong. Standard Life Financial Inc., of which the main operating unit is The Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada, is Standard Life plc s largest operation outside the U.K., with 2,000 employees based in Montreal and across Canada, serving more than 1.3 million Canadians, including group insurance and pension plan participants. Products and services include group savings and retirement, group insurance, individual life insurance, savings and retirement, mutual funds and portfolio management. The Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada had $33.7 billion of assets under administration, as at June 30, 2009. In September 2009, Standard & Poors assigned its A financial strength rating to the Company, with a stable outlook. Standard Life plc has around 1.5 million shareholders in over 50 countries, including over 13,500 institutional and individual shareholders in Canada. It has been trading on the London Stock Exchange since The Standard Life Assurance Company demutualized in 2006. Standard Life plc is listed on the FTSE 100, Europe s largest index, and on the FTSE4Good Index, which identifies companies adhering to globally recognized corporate responsibility standards. Talk soon. www.standardlife.ca The Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada Standard Life Assurance Limited GE12104-11-2009 GS