associate director

specialist

actuary

software engineer

credentialing specialist

Sun Life

Working for Sun Life Financial for the last 5+ years has been an adventure. Each day, while performing the same activities, I always learn something new. I see different diagnoses day in and day out and have learned many things about health care, how the body reacts to certain diseases, and what it means to truly help someone.

Each day, I endure many tasks including claims processing which entails comparing the acts of a medical condition to the wording within a specified group contract. I place many phone calls each day to claimants, physicians, and claimants employers to obtain additional medical documentation, employment responsibilities, wage information, accident details, etc to help in making the fairest decision possible for each claim received. I manage complex tasks such as researching medical conditions that may be considered work related as well as reading state laws in comparison to a claimants accident details to ensure that their claim does not fall within the contracts exclusions and limitations. Should a claim fall within these categories, I am responsible for writing and communicating each denial to the appropriate parties. Additional tasks include answering emails, participating in conference calls with claimants, employers, physicians, and coworkers. As well, certain additional tasks may be assigned each day, such as creating training modules for new hires, assisting coworkers with system issues, etc.

Our management dept within Short Term Disability has been changed frequently over the last 3 years and even today is still with transitions. Due to this, there is a lack of availability from management to assist with questions. Coworkers are a very tight knit family and we do our best to assist each other with overflow of work and simple questions. It is our decision to ask coworkers for assistance prior to going to a manager.

The hardest part of the job is finding a manager that is available to provide guidance on more complex claim situations.

The most enjoyable part of the job is helping people and receiving favorable feedback from each person. On many occasions, I have received phone calls around the holidays from those individuals whom I have really helped and receiving holiday cards from them as well.

better understanding of the business and IT processes.
•	Responsible for analysis and functional specifications of As-Is and To-Be Business model to conduct GAP analysis in comparison to the proposed system to enhance the functionality of the application. 
•	Gathered Business requirements through interviews, surveys and observing from account managers and conducted controlled brain-storming sessions with project focus groups and documented them in the Business requirement Document
•	Designed and developed project templates based on SDLC Methodology
•	Planned and defined system requirements to Use Cases, Use Case Scenarios and Use Case Narratives using the UML methodologies 
•	Compiled financial, accounting, and economic data, developed investment guidelines, established comprehensive risk and asset allocation program for variable annuity subaccounts
•	Created Use Case Diagrams, Activity Diagrams, and Sequence Diagrams using MS Visio
•	Identify different types of users and analyze several important human engineering factors and guidelines and incorporated them into a design of a user interface using MS Visio 
•	Managed and coordinated the QA team to create the test approach and determine test needs, test environment, test data, resources and limitations
•	 Researched financial reports to support investment strategies of variable annuities separate accounts. Utilized trend reports to develop hypothetical investment returns models.
•	Performed manual and automated tested related to the graphical user interface, functionality testing, security testing, and testing related to data sources
•	Helped to develop test strategies, test cases, test plans, defect reports, Traceability Matrixes and test environments and managed the testing process, bug reporting and analysis of test results. 
•	Tracked the progress of system testing, and provided a daily status report to the Test Manager
•	Used Test Director to house all test documentation and report/track all issues and defects 
•	Acted as a customer representative during the iteration cycles, and assisted in the data mapping process
•	Interaction with the developers to report and correct bugs
•	Worked with the business end users, project and technology management and their staff, to identify, define, interpret, and clarify scope of problems/issues in terms of complex business systems requirements and processes

I worked for a thriving small health insurance advocacy company for many years before SunLife bought out the company several years ago...and it has been all downhill since. Truly tragic they took a high-functioning company and ground it and the staff into dust within a few short years. They immediately removed and replaced our excellent management with bizarre, power hungry, competitive fake liars who added many layers of meaningless paperwork and practiced micromanagement instead of letting the staff just do the actual work. We were told there would be raises but that never happened and told not to do overtime but the workload immediately tripled. They relocated the office so it was farther for everyone to travel to. There were mass layoffs while we were chronically understaffed. Truly the worst work experience I have ever had on all levels, I am actively looking for a new position and can not wait to be away from the chronic dysfunction as they are getting ready to dissolve our department as they completely ruined it. Why do these companies never learn that if they trust their long term employees and leave them alone to actually do their  work everyone is happy: the workers are motivated and the company makes money. So basic.

Co-workers and claimants were most enjoyable to work with, as well as my first manager. The second manager suffered from Napoleon syndrome, and was intolerable.  There was no reasoning to the rational of claims decisions under him.  Having had vast prior experience in claims handling, as well as a NH adjuster licence, the work environment became a slippery slope. I had seen meritless claim approval, as the manager was afraid that it may be overturned on appeal, and hurt his groups rating. I was also told by this manager, that an employee needs to meet a certain average on the number of claim denials and approvals each month.  This philosophy was unacceptable to my values.  Claim decisions should be made on the facts of the case, not numbers the company wants to see...I had scored in the high 90's on a claim audit, and the manager actually work me up for mishandling the file.  When he called to congratulate me on the audit score, I pointed out to him his negative remarks...  He was blindsided and had no explanation.  They have and will continue to lose talented and hard working employees with this narcissist as a manager.     Upper management has no regard for employees, in fact, they retaliate if you have any complaints or constructive criticism, which is greatly needed within SLF.

Great company! Excellent benefits. Genuine concern for every employee. Superb support and guidance from management.
Plenty of opportunity to give back to the community through volunteering, like gardening for a local park, wrapping Christmas gifts for the underprivileged, fund raising for the Children's Hospital. 
Diversity and inclusion weekly meetings.
Free parking. Work from home flexibility.
IT folks are very knowledgeable and helpful, always available immediately. Anything you need, they can supply... a new mouse, a bulk PDF converter, an extra modem for work efficiency, they will respond right away. Despite our sister office being in Seattle, 3 hour time difference, meetings were scheduled to accommodate everyone.
The most enjoyable part of the job was having a variety of responsibilities, and the option to learn more about other departments.

Get to work early set up workstation and check emails and pipeline.
Grab some breakfast set up conference calls and manage all pipelines throughout the day. Talk sports with the  guys and weekend plans. Go to lunch & after lunch continue to manage pipeline. Call reps and brokers as necessary and finish work at 5PM.
I have learned how to manage 5 Reps and their workload. Learned how to use QPS system and various work tools. I also learned that I don't like an all day desk job. The management team is very good.
My manager in particular is excellent with understanding people and knowledgeable about the work I do and always willing to help.
The hardest part of the job is sitting at a desk all day and there is so much to learn sometimes information overload occurs. The most enjoyable part of the job is the people I work with and the fellowship we have with each other. The guys really make work more enjoyable through talking and joking with each other but in a respectful manner.

Some of the positives since joining include strong company onboarding, including being set up with a buddy, a wide variety of employee benefits beyond medical/dental that included time with SunLife advisor, Lumino health etc., and work from anywhere was strongly encouraged initially.

Some of the negatives include constant people manager changes and realignments, long time employees that are not friendly or supportive of new hires, lack of transparency and communication around changes, and now there is a lot more meetings, and a harder push to have people attending in person, even though they are frequently scheduled in one location, and others in different locations are expected to travel.  Teams are supposedly agile, but don’t have the required funding model and delivery expectations and processes to back it up.  Scope, time and budgets are not realistic, and a lot of blame game.


Sun Life is in the process of settling down after an acquisition that took place 3/1/2016.  They decided to take the best from the acquired company and from their company and are trying to blend them together.  This has caused a lot of confusion.  Communication in the company is not adequate.  Decisions made seemed to lack forethought or big picture thinking.  Loyal clients are not happy with the changes and are taking their business elsewhere.  I was getting approx 100 emails a day and had to turn them around in 24 hours.  Not enough people in my department.  Slow to hire and make changes.  My manager was terrible.  Management said they wanted employees opinions before changes were made but seemingly did not take advice of the people most effected.  Laid off people in what seemed like a very random way.  Poor company ethos. Really enjoyed working with my colleagues and with other departments.

	Managed a staff of 20 plus direct reports in the Premium Administration and Group Portability and Conversion teams.
	Business owner for the collection of $2.5 billion in annual premium.
	Project Manager on all premium implementation and conversion initiatives. 
	Subject Matter Expert (SME) for all group product, administration system, and reporting initiatives for Premium Administration.
	Lead process improvement lean/six sigma projects for Premium Administration.
	Created and implemented the new employee training program.
	Identified training needs to continually develop team members to increase the department’s functional matrix.
	Reviewed and responded to all escalated, complex, and sensitive Premium issues.
	Delivered business results by managing employees in a way that effectively assists them to achieve their performance goals.
	Business owner for all Premium Administration audits. 
	Promoted teamwork and collaboration between all business units.

The company is awesome overall. Great culture, lots of employee events and focus on diversity and inclusion. Work from home opportunities, flex time and generous PTO is available. The actual day to day work is a different story though. The communication between departments is non existent which doesn’t look good when trying to be united for the customer/client. Sales runs the company. They will sell dreams and it’s your job to fix it on the backend. There’s no repercussions at all. You will have work dumped on you with no increase in pay or actual promotion. There’s literally no job advancement/growth. Work life balance is terrible. Plan to devote 2-3 months of your life and neglect your family and social life during peak season. It always feels overwhelming and management says they are there to help, but it’s not true.  

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Associate director 11 salaries reported	$134,868 per year
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