Kathmandu. The three-tier leadership, which was implemented with the objective of promoting professional life insurance agents in life insurance companies, has created obstacles in the development of commercial agents.
The tendency of keeping three members of the same family below each other in the leadership chain for the incentive amount to be distributed up to 18 percent in addition to the commission on the basis of insurance premium income for the development of professional agents has brought distortion.
Termite Leading Agent{
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The so-called leading agents break the chain of agent leadership for the greed of money and appoint members of the same family as business developers and agency managers. It doesn’t produce commercial agents, it gets frustrated. The days of such agents are spent calculating how much commission and incentive income they have earned from their family members throughout the year. They find potential agents and join the network. And from here, the purpose of the Nepal Insurance Authority for the production of commercial agents begins to be eclipsed.
Let’s look at a real example here. An agent, who is also on the executive committee under the national leadership of the Professional Agent. There is no doubt that he is an active agent. Because in 24 hours a day, he devotes at least 15 hours to the life insurance business. Reach the insured’s doorstep, seek insurance, issue at least one insurance policy in a day. However, he has appointed his wife as an agent leader (business developer) at a higher level than him. My wife is a pure housewife. He is not only knowledgeable about selling life insurance policies, but also about insurance. On top of being a housewife, he has appointed his brother as an agency manager. My brother is a general businessman. My brother also knows about insurance. Nor is he interested. He is always busy with his shop.
Agent network layer
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In the life insurance company, in addition to the commission of the business brought directly by any agent, there are also three other levels of commission. The first level, or the lowest level, consists of agents who directly contribute to the new business. The second level, i.e., the agent who is above the direct business and below the third level, is the leader. In the third level, they will get incentives on the basis of the business done by the agent under them at the highest level of the three levels.
The role of a leader advisor is important in leading a large agent network towards professionalism. These leading agents contribute significantly in training their subordinate agents, adhering to professional ethics and motivating them through their success stories. These issues apply only when the leader is standing as the leading agent not only on paper and not only within the insurance company’s agent structure, but also as a de facto leading agent.
Deprived of Leadership Development
The mask of such so-called agents is exposed at the annual felicitation ceremony organized by the Life Insurance Company. There is no presence of the so-called housewife or business brother of the so-called senior level of the active agent. All three are the active agents on stage to claim the title. While such a trend may directly benefit an agent and his entire family, the insurance sector suffers in the long run. Because those so-called leading agents (business developers and agency managers) who have always been kept behind the scenes never appear in public. His struggles and success(?)Other agents don’t get to hear, know, and feel the story and are deprived of the opportunity to be inspired.
Not only this, if the agent who is active in the field for those 15 hours is unable to continue the business for any reason, if it is covered by physical or mental disability, then the rest of the family members have no role in the insurance business.
According to life insurers, the anomaly of three members of the same family joining the agent leadership chain is more prevalent in old life insurance companies than in new ones. New insurers do not initially recommend members of the same family to the agent licensing examination as much as possible. Even if they are recommended, they are prohibited from joining the same series.
Professional agents have submitted details of the network of members of a single family in 4 different life insurance companies to Insurance Khabar. Looking at the details of the business of the last 5 years, it is seen that although the business has grown significantly in certain years, it has been weakened over the years.
Measures the insurer can do on its own{
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Bukhyacha (known as dummy among agents) agents who have little to do with the life insurance business do not participate in the agent refreshment program run from the central level at the branch and sub-branch office level. Nor do they dare to participate in the felicitation program conducted at the regional or central level. The agent who comes to receive the award at such ceremonies does not have the ability to give such an opinion if they are faced with an interview or give advice on an insurance plan.
“As far as we know, we do not allow members of the same family to participate in the agent chain,” said one of the CEOs while explaining the practice of his company, “When we visit the branch, we gather all the leading agents and immediately deprive those who do not have confidence on their faces about life insurance and immediately deprive them of benefits.” ’
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The Nepal Insurance Authority (NIA) should make strict provisions so that the agents of the same family cannot be included in the same series under any pretext even if it is amended in the directive related to insurance agents. For this, it should be mandatory to separate the members of the same family from the chain within a certain time (6 months).
Leading agents and especially leaders associated with the agent organization are putting pressure and influence on the top leadership of insurance companies to enter the leadership ladder or to kill the person they want whenever they want. It cannot be said that such a system will not be able to provide institutional cover to a limited number of agents. However, the regulator must draw a line between the perceived and the actual business agent in order to promote the business agent. (Photo by AI)
