Sun Life's quarterly profit misses estimates on U.S. business weakness

Rewrites paragraph 1, adds estimates in paragraph 4

Feb 12 (Reuters) - Sun Life Financial SLF.TO reported a fall in its fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday, as weakness in U.S. business took away gains made in Asian markets.

U.S. group sales of $830 million were down 11% from a year ago, reflecting lower dental, employee benefits and medical stop-loss sales. Dental sales primarily reflected lower Medicaid sales, the company said.

However, Sun Life's business in Asia, a key playground for Canada's biggest life insurance companies, saw underlying net income grow 22% to $175 million from last year.

Canada's second-largest life insurer's earned C$1.68 ($1.17) per share, falling short of the average estimate of C$1.78 per share, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Its bigger peer Manulife Financial MFC.TO will report quarterly results next week.

($1 = 1.4300 Canadian dollars)