Important notice: Funds with Deferred Sales Charges

The Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators (CCIR) is requiring all insurance companies to discontinue the sale of segregated funds with deferred sales charges (DSC) effective June 1, 2023. This also impacts ongoing or new deposits to some existing segregated fund accounts. Please contact any Equitable Life clients who may be impacted.

How this impacts clients:
In response to the insurance regulator’s recommendation, Equitable Life^® will be making changes to the administration of certain segregated fund products, which may impact clients. The details are outlined below:

Pivotal Select™ segregated fund product
On or about May 29, 2023:

Funds with DSC or Low Load (LL) sales charge options will be closed to additional deposits. Future deposits must be allocated to the No Load (NL) sales charge option of the funds available within the policy.
Any existing amounts held in DSC or LL funds are not impacted and will retain the existing deferred sales charge schedule outlined in a client’s contract. The annual 10% available (20% for RIF policies) for withdrawal without fees continues to apply through to the expiry of the fee schedule.
If the default deposit instructions that a client previously provided include funds with DSC or LL sales charge options, these instructions will be automatically updated to the NL sales charge option of the same fund for all future deposits.
If a client has pre-authorized scheduled deposits into funds with the DSC or LL sales charge options, these instructions will be automatically updated to the NL sales charge option of the same funds for all future deposits.
In alignment with our current administrative rules, if a client has DSC or LL funds, they will not be able to make deposits into No Load Chargeback funds (NLCB and NLCB5) within the same policy.

Legacy segregated fund products
Ongoing deposits to DSC funds are permitted when a segregated fund product does not have an alternative sales charge option available within the contract. This applies to the following products:

Personal Investment Portfolio
Pivotal Solutions II
Pivotal Solutions DSC

As a result, clients who own these types of products may continue to make new deposits to the DSC funds within their policy. Any new segregated fund deposits, as well as any existing segregated fund amounts within their policy will retain the deferred sales charge schedule outlined in their contract.

If a client plans on making additional deposits, they may be interested in alternative sales charge options that do not include DSC. For example, Equitable Life offers “No Load” (NL) and “No Load Chargeback” (NLCB and NLCB5) sales charge options within the Pivotal Select segregated fund contract. In these situations, a new application would need to be completed and submitted.

Please note that draft regulation in Quebec is currently under review which may impact Equitable Life’s approach for Quebec clients with legacy segregated fund products.

Equitable Life will continue to monitor provincial regulatory developments and adjust our approach as needed.

Client communication
We will be sending clients a letter within their December 31, 2022, statement describing their options, and the impacts to their policy (if applicable). We recommend that you contact clients to discuss the contents of Equitable Life’s letter and provide any advice that they may need regarding ongoing deposits to their segregated funds. You can access a copy of the client letter here:

If you have any questions, please reach out to our Advisor Services Team at 1.866.884.7427.

December 23, 2022

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