Website: equitable.ca/products/group-benefits
Head office address (Canada): One Westmount Road North, Waterloo, ON N2J 4C7
Year established: 1920
Ownership structure: mutual company, Canadian; federally regulated by OSFI
Target market/client profile: Canadian employers, plan sponsors, advisors, and individuals seeking group benefits, insurance, and investment solutions; serves organizations with two to 2,000 employees
Number of professional staff: more than 1,400 employees
Office locations (Canadian cities): Waterloo (head office), Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, Markham, and Ottawa
Equitable is a Canadian mutual life insurer headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario. The company offers group benefits, individual insurance, and investment products to more than 1.2 million people. Its AUA totalled $12.7 billion as at December 31, 2025.
Also known as Equitable Life of Canada, the firm's history goes back to 1920, when Sydney Tweed founded the Ontario Equitable Life and Accident Insurance Company. He ran the business from a two-room, second-floor office in Waterloo.
From there, the firm offered life and accident insurance products to Canadians. That small operation would take on a new identity just 16 years later.
The company reincorporated under a federal charter in 1936 as The Equitable Life Insurance Company of Canada. As a mutual, it is owned by its participating policyholders rather than outside shareholders.
Over the following decades, the insurer added group benefits and investment products to its business. It also operated in Bermuda for a time but exited that market in October 2019 to focus on Canada.
Fabien Jeudy, previously president of Sun Life International Hubs, joined as president and CEO in July 2021. Under his lead, the company started a five-year strategic plan in 2023.
That same year, the insurer refreshed its brand and became known simply as Equitable. It also launched EZBenefits, a group benefits product built for small businesses.
The company entered 2025 in its third year of that strategic plan. Premiums and deposits nearly doubled over the three-year period to reach $4.3 billion.
The firm finished 2025 with a 159 percent LICAT ratio, which measures capital strength against OSFI's 100 percent target. The insurer paid $1.6 billion in claims and posted $111 million in group benefits sales that year.
In March 2026, Equitable partnered with Empathy, a bereavement support technology firm. That partnership added digital estate settlement and grief resources to all individual life insurance policies.
Equitable provides group benefits, individual insurance, and investment products across the following areas:
Beyond group benefits, Equitable also offers individual life insurance, registered savings products, and segregated funds.
In April 2026, Equitable added the RxFood nutrition platform to all group benefits plans at no extra cost. The AI-driven app analyzes meal photos and creates nutrition plans to help members manage chronic conditions.
Fabien Jeudy serves as president and CEO of Equitable. His career covers finance, actuarial, risk, and distribution roles across Canada, the US, and Asia. Jeudy holds FSA and FCIA designations and studied actuarial mathematics at Concordia University.
Other members of Jeudy's executive team include:
Douglas Alexander chairs the board of directors, which has 10 members. Alexander spent 18 years in senior financial roles, including as CFO of London Life Insurance Company. Other directors include Adrian Basaraba, Andrea Bolger, Barry McInerney, Douglas MacKenzie, and Sheila Hart.
The board oversees strategy, risk management, and executive performance through five standing committees. Each committee is made up entirely of directors who are not officers, employees, or affiliates of the company.
Equitable's group benefits division works with plan sponsors, administrators, and their employees. The insurer builds each client relationship through an independent advisor who acts as the main point of contact.
The company also gathers advisor and client feedback through face-to-face meetings, surveys, and a dedicated platform. It runs group benefits offices across:
All client service teams are staffed by people based in Canada. The company expanded its care centres in 2025 with new technology, updated workflows, and team training.
Equitable has earned recognition for its workplace culture and community giving. The insurer's group benefits leaders have also been featured in Benefits and Pensions Monitor (BPM) awards programs.
The company launched The Equitable Foundation in 2025 as a separate charity focused on food insecurity. The firm funded it with a $5 million corporate donation.
The Foundation made its first grants to the Cambridge Food Bank and the Food Bank of Waterloo Region. The insurer's broader giving program also supported more than 40 organizations across Canada back in 2024.
Equitable's Sofia Colaiacovo spoke to BPM in March 2026 about fertility and women's health coverage gaps. The VP of group sales in Eastern Canada pointed to cost barriers for small and mid-size employers.
That conversation is one example of the insurer's group benefits team contributing to industry discussions.
Equitable’s Don Bisch explains how a photo of lunch can go further than a wellness seminar
‘We, the collective, need to ensure that everyone's aware of what's available to them,’ says Sofia Colaiacovo
New no-cost tool turns meal photos and glucose data into guidance for chronic disease risk
New benefit promises to guide beneficiaries through estate and claims tasks
Ottawa directs $5.4 million to abortion, fertility, menopause, and endometriosis projects to cut access barriers
Insurer lifts claims, dividends, and group benefits sales while advancing digital tools
Budget 2025 changes may quietly cut pension accruals and jobs, raising transparency and fairness issues
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Mental health serves as the main focus for pharmacogenomic testing, says Equitable
