A SIGH OF RELIEF FOR AIG CLIENTS IN CANADA

I have been getting a lot of our client that were concerned about the future of AIG Canada, as the parent company in the US has been having some major financial issues, to say the least.

I have written about this on my website in the past, re-assuring everyone that AIG in Canada is a separate entity, and since the acquisition of AIG Canada several months ago, the only thing that wasn’t clear is whether BMO will be keeping the AIG brand or not. Buyers of Canadian Life Insurance can now breathe easy, as BMO will take over the Brand, the employees, the clients and policy holders of AIG, and the only thing that they are keeping is the great Canadian Life Insurance rates that AIG has.

Below is an article from Advisor.ca that has more detail.

In an all-cash deal estimated at $329.5 million CDN, BMO Financial Group said today that it has officially purchased AIG Life Insurance Company of Canada (AIG Life of Canada). The deal was first announced in mid January.

Effective today, AIG Life of Canada, the former Canadian subsidiary, of the beleaguered U.S. insurance giant, becomes BMO Life Assurance Company and will adopt the BMO Insurance brand for all of its marketing, broker and customer communications. It will operate within BMO’s wealth management division, the Private Client Group.

The acquisition gives BMO, historically a smaller insurance player in the Canadian advisory market, a big leg up. The company hopes to leverage AIG’s Canada’s existing relationships with Managing General Agents and their broker networks.

For its part, BMO gains 300 new employees, 400,000 customers, Managing General Agents, and a network of more than 5,000 brokers across the country, according to a BMO release.

Says Gilles Ouellette, president and CEO of BMO’s Private Client Group, “This acquisition will strengthen BMO Life’s competitive position, giving us immediate scale and capabilities in the life insurance market and will allow us to meet our clients unmet insurance needs.”

BMO Capital Markets was the exclusive financial advisor to BMO Financial Group on this transaction.

(04/01/09)

Originally posted by Advisor.ca