Sun Life Financial - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning and welcome to the Sun Life Financial Q3 2025 conference call. My name is Gaylene and I will be your conference operator today. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. The host of the call is Natalie Brady, Senior Vice President, Capital Management and Investor Relations. Please go ahead Ms. Brady.

Natalie Brady (SVP of Capital Management and IR)

Thank you and good morning everyone. Welcome to Sun Life's earnings call for the third quarter of 2025. Our earnings release and the slides for today's call are available on the investor relations section of our website at sunlife.com. We will begin today's call with opening remarks from Kevin Strain, President and Chief Executive Officer. Following Kevin, Tim Deacon, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will present the financial results for the quarter. After the prepared remarks, we will move to the question and answer portion of the call. Other members of management are also available to answer your questions this morning. Turning to slide two, I draw your attention to the cautionary language regarding the use of forward-looking statements and non-IFRS financial measures which form part of today's remarks.

As noted in the slides, forward looking statements may be rendered inaccurate by subsequent events and with that I'll now turn things over to Kevin.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

Thanks Natalie and good morning everyone. Turning to slide four. We had a good Q3 for top line and for bottom line, demonstrating the benefits and strength of our diversified business model. Our underlying EPS was CAD 1.86, up 6% year-over-year. Underlying ROE was 18.3%, progressing well towards our medium term objective, and our book value per share grew 3% quarter-over-quarter. Individual protection sales grew 35%, group health and protection sales grew 12%, and we had almost CAD 3 billion of positive net flows in asset management and wealth. We achieved strong underlying earnings in Asia and Canada with solid underlying earnings in asset management. We continue to navigate the industry challenges in our U.S. business, which performed below our expectations this quarter.

Results in our U.S. business were challenged by unfavorable insurance experience across group and dental reflecting the structural changes occurring in the U.S. health care system which are driving higher claims frequency and cost. It is important to remember that our U.S. group benefits and dental businesses are repricable over a one- to three-year time frame and our experience is largely in line with or better than industry trends. Our employee benefits business saw higher disability claims in July but this started to normalize in August and September and we see this as normal volatility. In our medical stop loss business we saw a higher frequency of claims over CAD 1 million in the quarter and we increased our stop loss ratio assumptions to reflect this accordingly. We are industry leaders in the stop loss business with scale and strong capabilities and we continue to have industry-leading claims ratios.

We have seen cycles like this in the past where the claims run ahead of pricing and we continue to be confident in our ability to pick the best risks and manage the pricing. In dental, we continue to navigate industry-wide headwinds from the slower pace of Medicaid contract repricing. We remain focused on improving our U.S. dental business performance through repricing, expense actions, and growth of our commercial business. In Asia we achieved double-digit protection sales growth in six markets with new business CSM growing 20% year-over-year and overall CSM has more than doubled over the past three years, reflecting sustained momentum across Asia. In Canada we continue with strong individual protection sales driven by solid demand for our participating life policies sold through both third-party and proprietary channels.

We are also continuing to see steady growth in our asset management net flows including strong capital raising and deployments at SLC Management and institutional net inflows at MFS. We ended the quarter with a LICAT ratio of 154% demonstrating our strong capital position. Announced a CAD 0.04 increase to our dividend to CAD 0.92 per share and we repurchased approximately CAD 400 million of shares in the quarter. Turning to slide five, we've invested significantly in our asset management business over the past decade and have industry-leading capabilities which span across public equities and public fixed income at MFS to alternative asset management at SLC. With CAD 1.6 trillion in assets under management, we are Canada's largest asset manager and are one of the largest asset managers in the world. We also have significant wealth management capabilities in Canada and Asia that we can leverage.

CAD 1.4 trillion of our AUM is managed by our asset management businesses, of which CAD 1.2 trillion is on behalf of third party investors. Our asset management pillar today includes both MFS and SLC, and a few weeks ago we announced Tom Murphy as President, Sun Life Asset Management. Tom has a deep asset management background. He previously led investment businesses in Europe and the U.S. before joining SLC Management in 2018, where he was the President of SLC Fixed Income. Over the past three years, Tom has been Sun Life's Chief Risk Officer. He will assume his new role on January 1st, 2026. It is important to note there will be no change in how MFS or SLC are managed under the structure. MFS is a global leader in public equities and public fixed income with a strong management team and a focus on the client.

We support the MFS strategies and including growing public fixed income and active ETFs and we saw good progress in both this quarter. SLC has equally strong management capabilities and is equally focused on clients. We are seeing significant interest in partnering with SLC from banks, insurers, reinsurers and others and are focused on unlocking these opportunities. We see long term growth potential in Asia Asset Management. We currently manage over CAD 140 billion in assets through our general account and wealth businesses. In addition, our asset management JV in India sits at CAD 65 billion in assets under management. Adding further capabilities in Asia will support growth in asset management and investment returns in our insurance and wealth businesses. Unlocking the synergies between our asset management business and our insurance and wealth businesses will be an important part of Tom's mandate.

I'm excited by the opportunity to accelerate the growth of our asset management businesses globally. We have an excellent mix of capabilities across asset management, insurance and wealth. Sun Life Asset Management will be an important growth engine for Sun Life going forward. Turning to slide six and staying on asset management and wealth, we saw good momentum across our platform this quarter. At SLC, fee earning assets under management grew 9% year-over-year, driven by strong capital raising and deployments across all platforms. We are on track to achieve our full year underlying earnings target of CAD 235 million. At MFS, net outflows of $0.9 billion were the lowest since 2021. Strong institutional gross sales of $12.9 billion included large mandate wins in separately managed accounts and collective investment trusts. We also had solid net inflows in public fixed income and active ETFs.

MFS continues to deliver industry leading pre-tax net operating margins with a 39.2% margin this quarter. In Canada, Sun Life Global Investments marked its 15th anniversary of helping Canadians grow and protect their wealth. Since launching in 2010, SLGI has grown to over CAD 44 billion in AUM and has become the largest Canadian-based provider of target date funds for group retirement plans. This quarter SLGI launched its first ETF series in Canada. Leveraging the power of our asset management platform, we are providing investors and advisors with more ways to access the deep expertise of MFS, SLC, fixed income, and Crescent Capital. Moving to Asia, we saw robust individual protection sales. Agency sales were up 25%. Bank insurance sales were up 36% and broker sales were up 47% year-over-year, highlighting the strength of our distribution in Asia across channels.

Asia Asset Management gross flows in sales of CAD 2.2 billion were up 17% driven by higher fixed income fund sales in India and MPF sales in Hong Kong. We are poised for growth in Canada, Asia and Asset Management and are focused on aligning our U.S. business for growth in the new realities we face in the U.S. health space. We have strong capabilities in the U.S. health space and scale in these businesses. They are capital light and they are repriceable by design. I have strong confidence in the U.S. management team and will work closely with David Healy to manage through the repricing and repositioning that needs to be done for growth. Overall, we are committed to our medium term objective of 10% underlying earnings growth, 20% ROE and dividend payouts in the range of 40%-50% of underlying earnings.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Tim who will walk us through the Q3 financial results in more detail.

Tim Deacon (EVP and CFO)

Thank you Kevin and good morning everyone. Turning to slide eight, overall, our third quarter results reflect the benefits and strengths of our diversified businesses as strong growth in Asia and Canada and solid results in asset management were partially offset by lower earnings in the U.S. In Q3, we reported underlying net income of CAD 1.047 billion, up 3% year-over-year. Underlying earnings per share of CAD 1.86 were up 6% over the same period. Asset management and wealth underlying earnings were up 5% over the prior year on improved credit, higher fee income in Canada, and higher net seed investment income at SLC Management. Health and protection underlying earnings were down 18% year-over-year, driven by unfavorable insurance experience across the U.S., partially offset by business growth and favorable insurance experience in Canada.

Individual protection underlying net income was up 25% over the prior year on business growth, favorable mortality experience in Asia, joint venture earnings in India, and higher investment earnings in Canada. Underlying return on equity was 18.3%, up from the prior year on higher earnings and the impact of share buybacks. Reported net income was CAD 1.1 billion, or 6% above underlying net income, driven by a gain from our increased ownership in Bowtie, partially offset by amortization of intangibles and acquisition related expenses. Market related impacts and the impact of our third quarter review of actuarial assumptions, or ACMA. Market related impacts reflect unfavorable real estate experience, as modestly positive returns in the quarter were below our long term expectations. We completed the annual review of actuarial assumptions, which resulted in a modest net loss of CAD 13 million and a CAD 139 million benefit to total CSM.

Total CSM, which reflects future profits, increased 12% year-over-year to CAD 14.4 billion driven by strong organic CSM growth. New business CSM of CAD 446 million increased 16% on strong sales compared to the same period last year. Organic capital generation net of dividends was strong at CAD 624 million or 60% of underlying net income, well above our target range of 30%-40%. Our capital position remains strong with an SLF LICAT ratio of 154% up 3 percentage points from the prior quarter driven by a CAD 1 billion debt issuance executed in the quarter and organic capital generation partially offset by share buybacks. Holdco cash was CAD 2.1 billion and our leverage ratio remains low at 21.6%.

Our book value per share increased 2% over the prior year, demonstrating our ability to generate strong growth while returning value to our shareholders with over 19 million shares repurchased in the last 12 months and 4.8 million shares repurchased this quarter. Finally, we announced a 4.5% increase to our common shareholder dividend. Turning to our business group performance on slide 10, MFS's underlying net income of $215 million was down 1% over the year, primarily reflecting a decrease in net interest income, mostly offset by higher fee income. On average net asset growth, our pre-tax operating margin of 39.2% decreased 1.3 percentage points from the prior year, primarily from lower interest income. Assets under management of $659 billion were up 2% over the prior year and up 4% over the prior quarter.

The sequential movement in AUM was driven by market appreciation, partially offset by net outflows. Overall net outflows of $871 million were at the lowest level since 2021 and included retail outflows of CAD 4.7 billion and institutional inflows of CAD 3.8 billion. Retail outflows reflected continued investor preference for risk free investments and were in line with industry. Institutional gross and net flows were the highest they have been in 10 years and were driven by several large mandate wins over CAD 1 billion in separately managed accounts and new target date product offerings in the defined contribution retirement channel, a key growth segment for MFS. MFS also had positive net flows in public fixed income and active ETFs this quarter.

Turning to slide 11, SLC Management generated underlying net income of CAD 54 million, up 15% year-over-year, which reflected the impact of higher net seed investment income and higher fee related earnings. With year to date underlying net income of CAD 184 million, SLC is well positioned to achieve its underlying earnings target of CAD 235 million for 2025. Fee related earnings of CAD 78 million were up 8% compared to the prior year, primarily from strong capital raising. Reported net income was CAD 23 million, down from the prior year due to a revaluation gain on acquisition related liabilities in the third quarter of 2024. SLC Management continues to demonstrate strong momentum across the platform with capital raising of CAD 5.6 billion, primarily in Crescent, BGO, and SLC fixed income, and deployments of CAD 7.4 billion across all asset classes.

SLC fee earning AUM of CAD 199 billion was up 9% year-over-year driven by net flows partially offset by realizations. Turning to slide 12, Canada reported net income of CAD 422 million was up 13% over the prior year on strong business growth, favorable insurance experience and higher fee income. Reported net income of CAD 414 million was up 8% over the prior year driven by underlying net income growth and favorable ACMA partially offset by market related impacts. Asset management and wealth underlying earnings were up 19% year on year on improved credit experience and higher fee income from AUM growth. Asset management and wealth AUM of CAD 213 billion was up 11% with the prior year on market appreciation. Group health and protection earnings were up 15% year-over-year reflecting business growth, favorable mortality and morbidity experienced from lower claims volumes and shorter durations and improved credit.

Group sales were down 21% from last year due to the timing of large case sales. Individual protection earnings were up 3% compared to the prior year on higher investment earnings. Individual protection sales were up 16% year-over-year driven by solid demand of non participating life products across both third party and proprietary sales channels. Turning to slide 13, Sun Life U.S.'s underlying net income was $107 million down 34% from the prior year in group health and protection. Underlying earnings were down 50% from the prior year reflecting unfavorable insurance experience in medical stop loss, higher claims frequency in dental and unfavorable disability experience in employee benefits. U.S. group health and protection sales of $273 million were up 25% year-over-year driven by higher large case sales in employee benefits and higher government sales in dental.

In employee benefits we experienced moderately elevated long term disability claims in July, which improved over the remainder of the quarter. In medical stop loss, the unfavorable insurance experience this quarter is comprised of residual claims from the pre-2025 business and the impact of existing pricing shortfalls and moderately elevated claims volumes on January 1st, 2025 business. As a result, in Q3 we increased our loss ratio assumption on the January 1st, 2025 block and for the impacts of three-quarters of expected experience to date. Reflecting our disciplined approach, in dental we continue to experience pricing shortfalls and higher claims frequency in our Medicaid business. In addition, we're seeing seasonally higher utilization in Q3 as a majority of our Medicaid membership base is comprised of children who typically receive dental services prior to the start of the school year.

Individual protection underlying earnings were up 29% year-over-year on other experience gains, improved credit experience and higher investment contributions. Reported net income of $72 million was down 71% compared to Q3 of 2024, reflecting unfavorable ACMA and lower underlying net income. Turning to slide 14, Asia posted record underlying net income of CAD 226 million, up 32% year-over-year. Individual protection earnings were up 38% over the prior year on strong continued sales momentum and in force growth, favorable mortality experience and higher earnings. In India, asset management and wealth earnings were in line with the prior year. Reported net income of CAD 373 million was higher year-over-year driven by the gain from our increased ownership in Bowtie, favorable ACMA and higher underlying net income.

We continue to see strong sales in individual protection, up 38% year-over-year, driven by double-digit sales growth across most of our markets and channels. Asia's total CSM of CAD 6.5 billion grew 17% over the same period last year, driven by strong organic CSM growth. New business CSM of CAD 322 million was up 20% over the prior year from strong sales overall. Our results were underpinned by the growth in Asia and Canada and solid results across asset management. We remain focused on executing the actions to position our U.S. health businesses for growth in the current environment. We are confident that our strong fundamentals, diversified business mix and geographies, and a robust capital position will enable us to continue to deliver on our medium-term objectives. With that, I will pass it back to Natalie for Q and A.

Natalie Brady (SVP of Capital Management and IR)

Thank you, Tim. To help ensure that all of our participants have an opportunity to ask questions this morning, please limit yourselves to one or two questions and then requeue with any additional questions. I will now ask the operator to poll the participants.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. To join the question queue you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, press star then two. Our first question is from Paul Holden with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Paul Holden (Director)

Thank you.

Good morning. Two questions, both related to U.S. dental.

The first would be what kind of expectations do you have for Medicaid repricing to start 2026?

That is, what are you hearing from the states and what should we expect?

The second one is maybe talking about growth in U.S. commercial premiums up roughly 6.5% year-over-year.

It's growing. But should we expect sort of reinvigorated?

Efforts to accelerate that growth, so to.

Diversify away from the Medicaid business?

Thank you.

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

Yeah, so thanks for the question. Paul, this is David. Yeah, we're very much focused on pricing in the U.S. business. The way to think about it is, you know, we have states and direct relationships with them, which is the majority of our business. We also have a significant relationship with health plans where we're the delegated provider of dental services. Then we also have ASO business, which is a mix of both states and health plans. Generally, we're making reasonably good progress with states around 26, with the exception of one large state. Health plans is going slower. We're making less progress. How we're thinking about it is, you know, we continue to focus with them on pricing and repricing appropriately.

In some cases, we're making structural changes to plans, including as appropriate, maybe moving from risk to ASO with some health plans and also including maybe terminating contracts if we can't get the price we need. We are very much committed to it. We're making progress. I would expect it to be gradual in 2026, but we're continuing to stay focused on it. Also on the ASO front, we continue to enhance the value of our services to make sure we're getting paid appropriately for the work we're doing in support of those contracts. It is slow progress with respect to commercial. Your second question. Yes, we're making progress. Since the acquisition, premiums have grown more than 30%, membership has grown more than 20%. This is an important opportunity for growth for us into the future.

As you know, in the U.S. market outside of health care, commercial dental is the number one sought after benefit after health care. It is a great opportunity for us to package commercial dental with the rest of our group benefits products. We have a really strong employee benefits offering and a great distribution system at which to bring that through. We are very much focused on that. It will take time, of course, it is a competitive landscape, but we expect to continue to make progress over time with commercial dental sales.

Paul Holden (Director)

All right, I'll leave it as my two questions. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Alex Scott with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Alex Scott (Insurance Research Analyst)

Hey, wanted to see if you could talk about the asset management flows and give us a feel for the institutional progress that's been made there. To what extent should we view that as more lumpiness and something driven by more of a single mandate as opposed to the things that you're doing to improve the more medium to long term trajectory of the flows in the business?

Ted Maloney (CEO)

Sure. This is Ted Maloney.

I think lumpiness, the word you use, is a really important one to use and it is a reminder that we do have lumpiness in both directions. In the quarter we got a couple of large inflows that Tim mentioned that we think are indicative of themselves longer term trend. The broad trends, both institutionally and retail, remained with more headwinds than tailwinds. Some of those headwinds may be lessening on the margin, but the headwinds persist within that. We'll continue to have big wins as well as continued losses. In this quarter we had those couple of big wins.

I can give you a little bit.

More color on them, which might be helpful to think about longer term, which is one was separately managed account within what we would characterize as institutional, that is in one of our international strategies. The world minus the U.S., which is one of the many areas where we have a really dominant set of franchises and are seen as market leaders. That has been a nice growth tailwind for us for a period of time and should continue to be. That was obviously a very big chunk of a tailwind. The other is actually smaller but perhaps more exciting. Tim mentioned this as well. The collective investment trust vehicle is the most important vehicle in the retirement space. There is a unique feature to it, which is that you cannot seed it yourself. You need a client to be an initial investor.

Getting that first investment in a target date CIT was a huge win on its own, but also allows us to fund CITs across all the components of the target date. We think that's another one that will provide long term tailwinds. I do want to reiterate the headwinds across the industry that we've been talking about for a long period of time persist. We are executing well. We believe within those headwinds they may be abating slightly on the margin, but we are not declaring a change to that. Our long term strategy very much includes long term net flow positive growth over time. We think we've got a very clear strategy to execute on that and we'll continue to do that. We'll need some help from those industry headwinds abating.

Alex Scott (Insurance Research Analyst)

Got it. That's helpful.

Second one I had is on stop loss. I wanted to see if you could provide a little more detail around how much of it this quarter was unfavorable.

Development from earlier or loss picks that were made earlier in the year.

Maybe further to help us think through how much of the cash claims do you still have to come in and are we getting late enough in the year that it's potentially becoming a little too late to reflect what you're learning in the 01/01/2026 renewals or do you feel like you are fully getting that?

I'm just trying to get a better.

Sense for what to expect going into next year.

Thanks.

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

Okay, thanks for the question. It's David again. Yeah, let me just break down the unfavorable insurance experience for medical stop loss in the quarter. There were really three factors involved. About 20% of it was related to the pricing shortfall that we've previously discussed on this call that we knew this year. 35% of it was related to late emergence of claims from cohorts prior to 01/01/2025, including one large claim that came through in the quarter, and the rest, just under half, was related to the 01/01/2025 cohort itself. We did see a higher number of greater than CAD 1 million claims late in the quarter. We did update our loss ratio pick for the year.

It's important to know that as a result of doing that it reflects really three-quarters of updates to reserves as Tim had mentioned for Q1, Q2, and Q3 premiums that came in. You'd also asked about pricing and I think how we're looking at it for 2026. U.S. health care costs are elevated. Medical trend has been rising to 8.5% this year and we expect that to continue into 2026. Our pricing reflects our view of leverage trend and it's also considering recent experience. You know, we continue to stay focused and disciplined in our pricing approach. You asked about how much of it has come through in terms of what we see at this point in the year. Q3 we had enough credible claims to be able to update our loss ratio pick for the year.

We typically see about 30% of our claims by Q3 and then a further 30% come through in the fourth quarter. It is still early in the cohort of 01/01/2025 but we are certainly updating our view on experience as we see it.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

Alex, it's Kevin. I just wanted to maybe sort of reiterate some of what David was saying. We expected significant increase in price when we went into this year and we increased prices by 14% and as we saw the year end experience we added another 200 basis points to that. We continue to see that trend. This quarter we added another 1% approximately, which was for the three-quarters sort of experience we were seeing. This business is repricable but when costs are rising so rapidly it's hard to keep up with that repricing. Over time we will be able to do that. We have confidence in our ability to do that because we do have scale and we do have good risk selection there.

When costs and claims are rising so rapidly we can lag a little bit and we've seen that in the past. I think that we're taking the right actions. A chunk of what you saw this quarter was for the year to date but it all reflects that increasing claims experience that we're seeing at the higher end, which I referenced in my speaking comments.

Alex Scott (Insurance Research Analyst)

It's all helpful, thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Gabriel Dechaine with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Gabriel Dechaine (Research Analyst of Banking and Insurance)

Yeah, so if I understand correctly, you're, you know, you're 17% of the total repricing target and that's the number you'll try to have fully embedded in the book by January 1, 2026. I guess aside from, you know, pricing actions, what other and the timing of the effectiveness, what other considerations are there? It's one thing to, you know, just increase pricing, but you know, market share.

Impact.

You know, there are some, you know, known unknowns I guess because we saw that with dental where there is a dynamic with the counterparties that was not anticipated. I am wondering if there is a similar kind of dynamic that we should be aware of when repricing or seeking repricing when it comes to this stop loss business, which is a commercial one, not state.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

Yeah, Gabe, it's Kevin, let me just, since I mentioned the 14% and the 2% and the 1%, that's for this year. Right, that's what we would have thought. That's what we thought we would have priced out if we had all the full information of how claims were coming through. So that's related to this year and we're going through the repricing for next year right now. I'm not signaling what we're doing for next year, but maybe David can go into some more detail.

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

Yeah, just to add to that, you know, as Kevin noted, we do have, you know, a typical underwriting cycle in this business and there are times when claims can come out ahead of pricing updates and we've seen this before. Historically we've had amongst the lowest loss ratios in the industry and we continue to do that. There are other things of course we're doing. We have a very talented team. We're not just only focused on pricing, although it's a specific focus for us. We continue to build out our cost containment programs, which are really important. We have expert clinical capabilities. Our clients are really seeking out more cost containment support in light of the rising healthcare costs.

We have care navigation capabilities as well, which we are building that help support employers and their employees as they deal with the escalating costs in the U.S. healthcare system. We are confident that we can work through this. We have an industry leading position and we are certainly continuing to stay focused on it.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Tom MacKinnon with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Tom MacKinnon (Managing Director of Insurance and Diversified Financials)

Yeah, thanks very much. Good morning. Maybe you can share with us sort of an outlook for the Medicaid dental loss ratio going forward. How much is that going to be improved as a result of any pricing benefits? As we move into 2026, would you reset your expected earnings on PA business in the U.S. as a result of perhaps a different expected loss ratio for U.S. Medicaid dental?

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

Yeah, so I noted that we're very focused on pricing and working through them on a state by state and contract by contract basis. You know, what we're seeing at the same time is we're seeing rising utilization in the U.S. and that has eaten up some of the pricing gains that we even saw coming through this year. We're still seeing a pretty conservative view on forward looking trend in utilization. You know, we're certainly trying to influence that in what we're doing and the work we're doing with states and health plans. It is gradual progress that we're seeing and that we're expecting to make.

Tom MacKinnon (Managing Director of Insurance and Diversified Financials)

If you were to maintain your best estimate here in terms of your Medicaid dental loss ratio, is the outlook for continued negative insurance experience with respect to this line at kind of the same level that you had in the quarter, or should it improve?

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

It's important to note that this quarter is a seasonally high quarter. As Tim noted, we do typically see this the third quarter. We insure a lot of children, they go back to school, they use the dentist a lot in this quarter. It's traditionally the highest quarter in the year. Q4, by contrast, is the most favorable quarter. We do expect things to improve in the next quarter. Like I said, going into 2026, we do expect gradual improvement in the loss ratio as we move forward and we're continuing to work through that.

Brennan Kennedy (SVP and Chief Actuary)

Tom, it's Brennan Kennedy just on your question about the reset, the earnings on short term insurance. We do reset that at the beginning of the year looking at the premiums in force and the pricing assumptions that are in effect.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

Tom, it's Kevin, I would say that there's a variety of reasons, but I've been following the benefits business a long time and when people think their benefits are going to end because they're going to retire or something's going to happen to it, they tend to use them more. I think that's what we're seeing in the U.S. Medicaid dental space. There's concern that they'll be losing those benefits and so they're utilizing them. There are other factors, but that's a big one. We do continue to believe that over time the states will reflect this is an important benefit. David talked about this important benefit for people and the states will reflect that cost and that need. It just will take some time to come through. We still believe that this is going to turn.

As I was saying earlier, when you're in a rapid change in terms of utilization, it can take a little bit of time to get that reflected in the price. It's not, it's more of a shorter term issue, one to two years. Over the longer term, we expect that to come back to more of our pricing levels when we did the deal.

Tom MacKinnon (Managing Director of Insurance and Diversified Financials)

Great.

As a follow up, I mean if I look at the organic capital you generated and you add the dividend here, it is over 100% of your underlying earnings. That has been a trend that we have seen over the last several quarters here. Why not step up on the share buyback? I realize you have some money here to be earmarked for SLC buy ins. If you are generating capital at this kind of rate, why should you not step up the share buyback here to offset any kind of pain you might see from some of the dental?

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

Tom, as you know, we have the remaining purchase for SLC early next year for the BGO and the Crescent transactions. Our current capital position does reflect that. We are preparing for that transaction, which will be around CAD 2 billion. Historically, we have also run the buyback at roughly what we are generating for capital. We are committed to seeing the current buyback through. We are committed to buybacks on a longer term basis as one of our tools to manage capital levels. I think you are going to see us be active on the buyback that we have in place and you are going to see us be committed to the capital priorities that we have had, one of those being the buyback. I think that consistent approach to the buyback is something that we think is important and valued by our shareholders.

Tom MacKinnon (Managing Director of Insurance and Diversified Financials)

Okay, thanks.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Doug Young with Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Doug Young (Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Just maybe I apologize back to the U.S. medical stop loss business. I just want to make sure I understand this. So based on your description, it seems like you've had a 2% shortfall that's been running through and yet 3% shortfall coming through this quarter, but you had to kind of make up for the last two quarters. When we look forward to Q4 and we think about the experience that should flow through in Q4, it should be about a 3% loss ratio shortfall. Do I have that correct? Any way you can quantify that? The second part of the question, are there ways you can temper the volatility, such as being a little bit more conservative on the reserve pick early in the year in these times of uncertainty and higher medical cost inflation, I just thought I'd throw that out there.

Thanks.

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

Yeah.

In terms of quantifying it for Q4, you know, I'd say, like I said, the 01/01/2025 cohort, we did update our ultimate loss ratio pick for the year. Because we did that, it reflected reserve updates for the first three quarters. In Q4 you would expect it to be a third of that. It would be a smaller amount in the single digits. That is how you should think about it. Was updated by just over a point from where we had it.

Doug Young (Analyst)

Sorry.

Just so single digit U.S. dollar millions is the negative impact for Q4 and the experience. Is that what you suggested?

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

That's what our current projection is based on our cohort and how it has evolved so far. Obviously it could get a little better than that or it could deteriorate further. We've seen about 30% of the claim volume that we expect on that cohort. We'll see another 30% in Q4. That will be a more meaningful view of what the ultimate loss ratio will be for this cohort of business from 01/01/2024.

Doug Young (Analyst)

I do not know for David or for Kevin, just in terms of mitigating the volatility, is there a way you can be a little more conservative than the reserve picks early in the year, similar to property and casualty insurance and reserve developments? That is the way I think of it. I think I have asked this before, but has there been any conversations around that?

Brennan Kennedy (SVP and Chief Actuary)

Hey Doug, it is Brennan Kennedy. Using our current method, this is the volatility we see. We continuously look at ways to refine things that we are doing to maintain best practice. This is something that we have had discussions on and we will take away.

Doug Young (Analyst)

Okay, and then just second, maybe for Manjit, Asia underlying earnings 16.2%. I think you have hit your target already. Is there anything unusual this quarter?

This is kind of like the new sustainable run rate and, you know, can you talk a little bit about where you think you can take that underlying ROE in Asia?

Manjit Singh (President of Sun Life Asia)

Good morning Doug, it's Manjit. As you know, we've had some pretty strong performance in Asia over the last little while. I'm pleased with what we've been able to deliver. Delivered 17% earnings growth last year and year to date we've delivered 20% growth. I think there are a number of factors that's driving that growth, Doug. First of all, we feel we have very good fundamentals. We're in attractive markets with high growth potential. We have good partnerships across the region. We've got strong distribution across banker, agency and broker, and we've got a talented team. We've also made some pretty good investments over the last little while. We've invested in digital to increase our straight through processing. We've invested in delivering better client experiences, which has resulted in record high client satisfaction scores, and also in our agent experience.

We've also invested in our brand and that's also resulted in record high brand awareness. The third thing I'd point out is that we've also increased our focus and capabilities to drive strong execution. I think all those things are contributing to the strong results that you're seeing in this current quarter. You know, the results did reflect some favorability that we had in high net worth mortality as well as some strong security gains. Those will bump around quarter to quarter. You won't necessarily see them in every quarter. Some quarters it might go a little bit the other way. I think fundamentally we've got a very strong business and expect to see strong performance in Asia going forward.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

Doug, it's Kevin. Oh, sorry. I'm just going to say it's been a long time since we've seen six of our eight markets growing in double digits. I think Manjit is doing a good job creating momentum across the Asia platform and I think that's really important. It's a whole bunch of factors but leadership matters and I think he's doing a great job driving that change in the Asia outlook.

Doug Young (Analyst)

Perfect. Appreciate the color.

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Mario Mendonca with TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Mario Mendonca (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning. I want to look beyond 2025 and the medical stop loss and think about 2026 and help me sort of game this out. Assuming the company's sufficiently conservative in building the reserves throughout the year and again perhaps in Q4 and you've got it right, assuming everything works out right, would it then be appropriate to assume that the experience gains and losses that we see in the U.S. would relate solely to dental and solely to experience on the 2026 cohort? Is that the right way to think about it?

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

Hi, Mario. It's David. Yeah, that's a fair assumption.

Mario Mendonca (Equity Research Analyst)

Help me then go through the next level. If you get that right, then growth in this business, then of course there would be a change in the level of experience gains relative to last year. That certainly helps. What is the other big driver? Would it simply be the net premiums in the business and the extent to which that grows or perhaps shrinks as you push through some significant pricing increases? Is that the way to think about it, that the base from which the short term insurance earnings emerge could potentially decline during the renewal period?

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

That's the way to think about it is, you know, the base of premiums does drive, you know, ultimately the earnings.

Mario Mendonca (Equity Research Analyst)

Over time and is it your expectation? Go ahead.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

Sorry, Mario, it's Kevin. I mean, we've, I think exactly like you're discussing. We've got the ability to price for the cost because the employers want this coverage. We've got the experience to underwrite this well, and it's that the costs have been rising rapidly with some of the structural changes that are happening in the U.S., and that will eventually level itself out and we will be able to price for the cost that we're seeing there. I think you've got that exactly right. Our expectation is we'll be able to price right now for the 2026 experience that we expect to see. That's our expectation. We are watching closely what's going on with those structural changes in the U.S. which are driving that higher cost.

Mario Mendonca (Equity Research Analyst)

You know where I was going with this is is there a potential other sort of shoe to drop in the form of a much smaller business in 2026 relative to 2025? Like that base, that install of business, simply declines as your customers go to other providers or decide to self insure. Is there some reason why that base could shrink materially in 2026?

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

No, we have, we're very confident in our plans and how we're approaching the market. We have a great platform, we have a great distribution network, and we have strong customer relationships. We have historically had some of the most low loss ratios in the business, and we expect that to continue. We are going through this period of adjustment for sure, but we feel very well positioned competitively, and we continue to expect to grow the business over time.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

I would add to that mirror that others are seeing the same higher cost. It is not like we are negatively positioned for that. In fact, given our scale, we are positively positioned. I think our strategic positioning would support growth in that sort of environment versus declines. We do have pricing discipline.

Which is.

Serving us well because our loss ratios remain less than the industry. The industry is experiencing these same higher costs and is going to have to reflect that in pricing as well.

Mario Mendonca (Equity Research Analyst)

That's your real, that's the real takeaway I'm taking from what you're suggesting, that strategically, competitively, Sun Life's not disadvantaged. It's just a matter of the entire industry repricing going into 2026.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

Yeah, I'd even say we're advantaged.

Mario Mendonca (Equity Research Analyst)

I understand that.

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Darko Mihelic with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Darko Mihelic (Managing Director)

Hi, thank you.

Just to follow up on that line.

Of questioning there, I just want to ensure one thing. Are we still talking about your targeted return of 7% in the stop loss as you hit?

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

If you look at our quarter results, our group benefits after tax margin was at 6.9%, so slightly below our long term target of 7%+. We do price for a margin in the medical stop loss business higher than what we are currently experiencing, and we certainly expect that to move up over time. You know, as Kevin noted, our loss ratios are 10 points-15 points better than others that disclose their loss ratios in the industry. We are in a good position here and we continue to work through this cycle.

Darko Mihelic (Managing Director)

Okay, so it's a hardening market and your expectation would be that with the entire market hardening that you should actually gain share in 2026. Is that how I should at your targeted profit margin?

Is that?

I just want to be very clear on that.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

Darko.

I'd say it a little bit differently. We're holding our pricing discipline and that will. It will a little bit depend on what others are doing. Others are seeing high loss ratios as well. We expect they would also be reflecting that. We'll see how that turns out. We will hold our pricing discipline. We are very good risk selectors as well and we've added additional capabilities which support us getting the right types of margins that we have been getting. We still see this as a really good business for us. We see we have a great management team there and I think that over time we'll get back to being in a very strong competitive position. We'll see what others do when it comes to pricing as we go through the process for next year.

We are not giving up on our pricing discipline and we certainly think that even given that we'll keep our scale.

Darko Mihelic (Managing Director)

Okay, okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Just to follow up on the fourth quarter in terms of the expectation, I just wanted to make sure that I understood something. You had mentioned that the reserving this quarter for the stop loss was based on 30% claims experience. Is that different from the 50% reports that you get by this time of year?

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

Yes. This is David again. This is an accumulation product and we hold reserves for 26 months. You know how we.

To.

Assess our ultimate loss ratio pick. We'll see another 30% of claims come through in Q4 and typically another 30% in what would essentially be Q1, how it will play out.

Darko Mihelic (Managing Director)

Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Gabriel Dechaine with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Gabriel Dechaine (Research Analyst of Banking and Insurance)

I guess I got cut off, my line dropped there last time around. My second question on the dental business and the repricing outlook there, there's a couple. It's not so straightforward in that, you know, if you need 10%, 15%, 20%, whatever the number is, percentage pricing increases for your counterparties to accept those, they have to also accept an accelerated or recognition of loss experience. I understand it's a three-year look back, maybe one or two good years in the look back in there. You want to have them, you know, emphasize the most recent experience which hasn't been as favorable. I'm wondering how you know those discussions are progressing, if you can shed some light on how difficult of a challenge that is.

If it is.

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

Yeah. So it's David again, thanks for the question. We continue to work through it. As Kevin noted, this is repriceable business and we ultimately expect to catch up with the experience. In Medicaid the rates are reset annually by the state and they typically look back, as you said, through a period of time, can be more or less than one year, either directly with us where we have those direct relationships or through health plans where we're subcontracting to those states, we can influence the rates. We provide a lot of data and insight and our opinion, and as you noted, it does include historical experience, but it also has to take into consideration a forward look for what utilization is going to be in the future. That is where we're seeing some conservatism in the rate setting process.

Some of it is related to the dampening effect of really the broader government, you know, pullback on spending in healthcare. You know, people are taking a more conservative view of what that utilization might be. What we are actually experiencing is a higher rate of utilization in the claims experience from what they are projecting and actually what we were seeing even pre pandemic when rates were more normalized. We do expect it to catch up and return, but it is taking time and we continue to influence the rate setting process as we educate on what we are seeing through experience coming through.

Gabriel Dechaine (Research Analyst of Banking and Insurance)

David, disconnect. Yep, sorry, go ahead.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

I was just going to say. Sorry, I thought ask your last question then I'm going to just add to.

It a little bit.

Gabriel Dechaine (Research Analyst of Banking and Insurance)

Geez, what is my last question? It's not unrelated. Stick with, stick with the dental I guess.

Kevin Strain (President and CEO)

Yeah, I was just going to say, Gabe, that it's, I'm glad you asked the question again about the dental business, and we've had a lot of questions about stop loss, and you know, they are going through a structural change to some of these things in the U.S. This is repriceable business. We've got a strong management team and capabilities and scale there. David comes from an IT and operations background, and he's been in the group business his whole career. He's ran our employee benefits and also our, he's ran our dental business. He's ran it there. I have a lot of confidence that we're going to work our way through these issues, and I think you heard that on the call.

If you look at the quarter, you know, the diversified nature of our business model and the growth that we saw in Asia, in Canada and the strong asset management results, you know, we are in line with our medium term objectives. Right. I think that I have a lot of confidence that Asia will, or Asia, that Asia and Canada will continue to do well but that the U.S. will turn this around and that, you know, that is going to be part of our growth story as we go forward. It is going to be, it is a difficult time but they will work their way through it and they are doing all the right things to do that.

As a company, if you look at the diversified nature of our business, I still am committed even with the U.S. being a little slower to achieving our medium term objectives and you saw that in the quarter. I think there is a very strong quarter in Asia and Canada under management and just its leadership. I think we are poised for growth in the asset management space and we are going to work through these issues in the U.S. and we are going to work through it together and we are going to work through it with the same type of discipline that we provide. We have good people there and we have good scale and we have good business capabilities. You know, when I step back I see us really positioned quite well through the quarter and that is it.

Was a strong quarter.

Gabriel Dechaine (Research Analyst of Banking and Insurance)

No, I'm not disputing that. It's, I think even in a challenge you have an 18%+ ROE or something like that. It's just, you know, we're learning as we go a little bit and trying to get a sense of the, you know, the moving pieces and you know, what could, what sort of timing we should expect for stuff to stabilize, I suppose. That brings me just to clarify Tim's comment about the Q4 stop loss outlook.

I believe you, just to dumb it down, you adjusted your reserves to, you know, accelerate recognition of these, you know, the trends in that 30% of the claims volume you've seen on the January 1 cohort, such that if you have the same experience in Q4 as you did in Q1, same claims or whatever, you would have a lower experience loss, but then you would probably have some other item, line item elsewhere that would, I assume, I do not know, maybe we can take that offline.

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

Yes, David, I'll just quickly comment that yeah, we have updated our best estimate loss ratio pick for the entire 01/01/2025 cohort and that reflects what we currently expect in Q4. It can change based on the claims that show up in the quarter. At the moment that is how we are viewing it.

Gabriel Dechaine (Research Analyst of Banking and Insurance)

All right, I will follow up. Have a good day.

Operator (participant)

The next question is a follow-up from Paul Holden with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Paul Holden (Director)

Great.

Thanks for taking my follow up. I guess the question that we're all trying to get at on U.S. dental.

Is that $100 million profit target?

Are you confident that that can be achieved in 2026 or too early to know because of the uncertainty in these utilization rates and uncertainty in pricing?

David Healy (President of Sun Life U.S.)

Yeah, so I think we've signaled that, you know, we continue to focus on pricing and we're making progress. We're taking a very careful approach to it and working closely with the states and the health plans we work with. It is going to be slow progress over the course of 2026. We do need to see some of the more recent utilization trends being better reflected in our pricing, you know, as we move forward. That is something that we're working through.

Paul Holden (Director)

Okay, so $100 million and $26 million.

Be too much to ask at this point. That's what I'm going to take away.

Okay, that's it for me.

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We have a follow up from Tom MacKinnon with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Tom MacKinnon (Managing Director of Insurance and Diversified Financials)

Yeah, a question just with respect to other fee income, especially in Canada, up nicely year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter, probably up better than the asset growth rate. Is there anything else in that number that could be driving that and how sustainable is it going forward?

Jessica Tan (President of Sun Life Canada and EVP)

Yeah, hi Todd, this is Jessica. Yeah, no, I think there are two pieces. I think one is that indeed our asset management and wealth is quite strong. If you look at Alcor, it was up 13%. If you look at the underlying growth both on insurance investment, our fee income is underlying 7% growth. Our AUM grew up by 11%. That definitely helps a lot. I think our group business on the fee side has also increased. You see our group premiums actually increased by 6%. As Kevin was saying, I think both know in Canada there is strong underlying growth and we continue to do well.

Tom MacKinnon (Managing Director of Insurance and Diversified Financials)

Yeah, that kind of trend should continue assuming asset, assuming the markets behave. I guess how much of that is really driven by ASO fees which are probably just more a function of net premium growth in group.

Jessica Tan (President of Sun Life Canada and EVP)

Yeah, I think the wealth part we expect to continue to do the momentum. You see that actually if you take out DBS which is more lumpy and it's a softer market. This year we had net inflows in Canada of CAD 1.5 billion which is almost twice the net inflows from last year. I think you will continue to see strong growth in our asset management and wealth AUM. If you look at year to date, our underlying net income in Canada is at 8% up which is, I think, well above our medium term target of 6%. We feel very confident of our 6% growth.

Tom MacKinnon (Managing Director of Insurance and Diversified Financials)

Okay, thanks.

Jessica Tan (President of Sun Life Canada and EVP)

Okay, thanks Tom.

Operator (participant)

This concludes the question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Natalie Brady for closing remarks.

Natalie Brady (SVP of Capital Management and IR)

Thank you, operator. This concludes today's call. A replay of the call will be available on the investor relations section of our website. Thank you and have a good day.

Operator (participant)

This brings to an end today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.