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Great-West Lifeco Inc.
Great-West Lifeco is a financial services holding company that sells life insurance, retirement savings plans, and workplace benefits to individuals and businesses, mainly in Canada, the United States, and Europe.
Great-West Lifeco is a Canadian financial company that mostly sells insurance and retirement products. If you have a life insurance policy, a retirement savings account through work, or a group health plan, there is a decent chance a company like this one stands behind it. It operates through well-known brands like Canada Life, Empower, and Irish Life, and it makes money by collecting premiums and managing savings for millions of customers.
The company operates in three main areas. In Canada, it sells life insurance, health benefits, and retirement plans under the Canada Life name. In the United States, its Empower brand runs workplace retirement plans, helping employees save for the future while their employer picks the plan. In Europe, mainly the UK, Ireland, and Germany, it sells insurance and pension products. The company earns money by charging fees on the savings it manages and by collecting premiums it invests until claims come due. Retirement money is a slow, steady business. Customers put money in, and the company takes a small cut every year to manage and safeguard it. That kind of fee income is sticky: people rarely move their retirement savings once they are set up. This is why Great-West Lifeco has grown into one of Canada's largest financial companies, with hundreds of billions of dollars in assets under management.
The company is remarkably quiet for its size — it is one of the giant financial firms that most people have never heard of. It pays a steady dividend, and it is controlled by Power Corporation of Canada, a holding company that has long steered a big slice of Canadian finance. When markets fall, its fee income takes a hit because the money it manages shrinks. When markets rise and more people save for retirement, the business quietly grows. That is basically the whole story: it makes its money by being the reliable middleman for people's long-term savings.
Saved answer · last researched 12 Nov 2026