Sun Life Financial Enhances Employee Benefits for Small Business

The Employee Benefits Group division of Sun Life Financial, Inc. (NYSE: SLF, TSX: SLF) today announced recent enhancements to employee benefits for small businesses. Sun Life’s E-Z Choice^TM benefit solutions are exclusively offered to employers with two to nine employees.

Through the E-Z Choice program, small business owners can choose from a complete line of group benefits, including group dental, group life, long term disability, and short term disability. The plans are easy to elect and can be customized with a variety of optional benefits. Recent enhancements to the E-Z Choice products include three comprehensive core dental plans; increased plan maximums for short term disability; and, three-year rate guarantees on life and disability plans. Contribution levels can be tailored from fully employer-paid to fully employee-paid.

"We understand that small business owners want to provide quality benefits to employees at an affordable cost,” said Scott Beliveau, VP, Multi-Line Product Center. "Owners wear many hats and may not have a dedicated HR resource to help them make benefit decisions. E-Z Choice is both robust and simple to navigate. We keep it simple with easy-to-understand plan designs, online administration, and a team of customer service experts dedicated to groups of this size.”

E-Z Choice Dental for Small Businesses

Sun Life offers the E-Z Choice three core dental plans with plan maximums set at $1,000, $1,200, and $1,500. All plans include no deductible on Type 1 expenses; a Maximum Carryover Benefit Account; covered oral cancer screening, implants, and sealants; and a vision discount card¹. With the free vision discount card program, employees save on procedures, glasses, and contacts when they visit participating retail vision providers.

Once a core dental plan is selected, coverage can be customized further with optional benefits like coverage for orthodontics; adding PPO for access to national and regional provider networks and discounts²; and, upgrading to a fully-insured vision insurance plan.

E-Z Choice Group Life and AD&D for Small Business

E-Z Choice group life plans are offered as a multiple of the employee’s annual earnings and include an accelerated benefit. Accidental death and dismemberment is included. Emergency Travel Assistance³ is included in the price of all group life plans and is available to employees and their dependents for medical and dental emergencies while traveling 100+ miles from home. Optional dependent life coverage is available.

E-Z Choice Disability for Small Business

E-Z Choice short term disability (STD) plans can be offered with a benefit duration of 13 or 26 weeks and maximums as high as $1,500. Claim reviewers work closely with employees and employers to get disabled employees back to work quickly and safely, even on a part-time basis. This progressive approach to rehabilitation combines early intervention through flexible claim notification, nurse case consultation, vocational rehabilitation, Social Security assistance, and online case management.

An E-Z Choice long term disability (LTD) plan, when added to an E-Z Choice STD plan, provides a comprehensive disability program. Sun Life’s LTD benefit is 60% to a maximum of $6,000 with the choice of a 60-day, 90-day, or 180-day elimination period. All plans include a partial disability benefit, rehabilitation benefit, survivor benefit, premium waiver and a partial benefit for pre-existing conditions.

An optional Employee Assistance Program (EAP)⁴ can be added to any disability or group life plan. With an EAP, employees have face-to-face or telephonic counseling on any personal topic, including financial planning, crisis counseling, wellness programs, child and elder care issues, and more.

Benefits Online

Small business customers have access to the same online plan administration tools as other Sun Life customers, including: viewing and paying bills; managing user access; updating member information; ordering dental ID cards; viewing plan certificates; downloading forms and administration guides; emailing Sun Life in a HIPAA-compliant environment. Employees can stay connected to their dental benefits with helpful online tools that let members find dental providers; view online explanation of benefits; estimate the cost of dental procedures based on zip code; learn about the link between oral health and overall health with educational materials; and more. Many features are available in Spanish.

For more information about Sun Life Financial’s employee benefits for small business, visit www.sunlife.com/us.

About Sun Life Financial

Sun Life Financial is a leading international financial services organization providing a diverse range of protection and wealth accumulation products and services to individuals and corporate customers. Chartered in 1865, Sun Life Financial and its partners today have operations in key markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China and Bermuda. As of September 30, 2009, the Sun Life Financial group of companies had total assets under management of US $385.3 billion.

Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under ticker symbol SLF. Visit Sun Life Financial’s website at www.sunlife.com/us.

Group insurance policies are underwritten by Sun Life and Health Insurance Company (U.S.) (Wellesley Hills, MA) in all states under Policy Forms Series GP-A and GP-D (or appropriate state editions). Product offerings may not be available in all states and may vary depending on state laws and regulations.

SLPC 21254 (12/09)

Exp. 12/11

¹ The Vision Discount Card is provided by Preferred Vision® Care Program and administered by Spectrum Management Benefits Corporation. It is not insurance. Visit www.preferredvisioncard.com for more details.

² PPO availability varies by state.

³ We selected Assist America, the nation’s largest provider of global emergency services through group benefits plan, to provide this service to our customers.

⁴ EAP provided by Harris Rothenberg International.