(Toronto) The CEO of Sun Life Financial says the potential benefits of operating Canada’s new dental plan outweigh the risks.
Kevin Strain says the insurer has the scale to implement the program that the government says is the largest coverage rollout in Canadian history.
The federal government announced in early December that it had awarded a contract worth approximately $747 million to Sun Life to help administer the program over five years, with the possibility of extending it for another five years.
The dental contract comes as Sun Life works to further strengthen the health aspect of group benefits and customer coverage.
Sun Life purchased DentaQuest, the largest provider of Medicaid dental benefits in the United States for $3.1 billion in 2021, and Dialogue Health Technologies, a Canadian virtual health care and wellness platform, in a 365 million deal last year.
On Wednesday evening, the insurance giant announced underlying net profit of 983 million for the last quarter of 2023, up from 892 million in the fourth quarter a year earlier.