Sun Life Financial

Sun Life Financial, Inc. is a Canada-based financial services company known primarily as a life insurance company. It is one of the largest life insurance companies in the world, and also one of the oldest with the history spanning back to 1865.

Sun Life Financial has a strong presence in investment management with over CAD$734 billion in assets under management operating in a number of countries. Sun Life ranks number 236 on the Forbes Global 2000 list for 2010 as well as on the Fortune 500 list.

History

Pre-World War II

Founded in Montreal, Quebec, as The Sun Insurance Company of Montreal in 1865 by Mathew Hamilton Gault (1822-1887), an Irish immigrant who settled in Montreal in 1842, its operations actually began in 1871. By the end of the 19th century it had expanded to Central and South America, the United States, the United Kingdom, West Indies, Japan, China, India, North Africa and other international markets. During the next five decades, the company grew and prospered, surviving the difficulties of World War I and the large drain on its finances through policy claims arising from the large number of deaths caused by the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918.