(Bloomberg) -- Sun Life Financial Inc. is combining its group benefits and Lumino online health service into a new business unit called Sun Life Health in a bid to more tightly integrate technology into its offerings.
Dave Jones, previously senior vice president for group benefits, has assumed the new role of president of Sun Life Health, the Toronto-based insurer said Wednesday. Sun Life Health is part of the insurer's broader Canadian operations.
The combination is geared toward improving service and speeding innovation for the group-benefits business's more than 3.4 million employee and dependent customers, and bolstering the offerings of the Lumino Health provider search and virtual-care platform.
“Canadians are looking for innovative digital and customized health solutions that are tailored to them,” Jones said in an interview. “We're definitely making the bet that those are an important part of the landscape for the future.”
Sun Life will look to continue building the business, Jones said. While some of its capabilities are “portable,” the ability to expand to other regions may be restrained by differences in countries' health-care systems, he said. Sun Life is also still deciding what role acquisitions might play in the unit's future, Jones said.
“We definitely want to build internally, and go from there if opportunities present themselves,” he said.
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