Sunwise Funds are Seg. Funds. These are like regular mutual funds, but have a guarantee to not pay out less than a certain amount if the investments fall. e.g., 75% guarantee if held to 10 years, or if you die before then. In return they charge higher fees. They are aslo protected from creditor claims, which is why some business owners like them, as they are offered as a life insurance product, which not all RRSP may be protected, depending. They are called Segregated funds because the insurance company can not blend the $'s for these investments with their own business operating dollars, but must hold them separate, in trust. Regular life insurance, term life, etc, doesn't have the same rules about segregation of money.
Thus, if the market has fallen since your mom bought these, then check to see if it makes sense to hold them long enough to get the guarantee.
I will second the other posters. The RRIF's can be consolidated into a single RRIF in the same person's name at a new institution. (unless its a locked-in "LRIF") Like an IRA roll over to a new account. You need to find a brokerage that will hold RRIFs for US residents. Try TD. Once set up, you can buy vanguard funds if you like with it, keep it as fixed income, whatever you want. You can even hold it as US $ currency in the TD RRIF account and buy US stocks in USD with it. I would just wait for a favorable dollar exchange and convert it when / if that occurs as they don't intend to spend much time in Canada in the future.
Mutual funds in Canada were averaging 2.2% fees... so 2.97% is high but not unheard of for a "wrap" product. Investors Group is notorious for having rear end loads (declining) so ask when the last $$'s was put into it / or the last re-investment / rebalance was made.. if more than 7 years, you are fine, otherwise be careful about rear end penalties... you may need to wait it out.
On $100k portfolio, your costs in fees are just under $3k/yr. Could be worse. It could be held as cash.
A RRIF is the same as an RRSP, except that it has minimum withdrawals calculated as (1 / (90yrs-current age)) to be withdrawn each year. e.g., at age 80, 10% of the balance needs to be drawn. This is intended to get it spent down and taxed by the time the person is 90 years old... however there is no maximum to the withdrawal, you just get a tax hit.
The only catch about taxes is in the year of death of the last spouse, 100% of the RRIF remaining is taxable in a single year.
The RRIF regular payments are typically treated as pension income by the US, and quite favorably / comparable to the total tax on a US pension your mom would be paying if it is domestic.. So don't cash it out, as the annual pension income is treated very fairly now, but a lump sum may have a high marginal tax rate. You may get to claim the Canadian tax withheld on your tax return and then pay US income tax on it. I would not worry about RRIF payments and taxes to a US resident... taxes should work out the same.
Canada does not have estate taxes. That is only a concern for the US tax return, or dying with a large amount still in the RRIF. So here, you might have a reason to move the RRIF to the USA, e.g., to buy assets that are sheltered from estate tax, or to shelter future capital gains growth. BUT! This is not so much money so not a problem for you, likely completely exempt from estate taxes.
