New York Life Insurance Taiwan Corp (國際紐約人壽) will increase its number of sales agents from 400 to 3,000 in five years, newly promoted president and chief executive officer Danny Lam (林順財) said yesterday.
“We look at our sales agents as the foundation of our competitive edge,” despite 50 percent of the insurer’s policies being sold via outlets of its partner banks, Lam told a media briefing.
Lam said he would follow a “back to basics” strategy in promoting sales of protection-based policies rather than investment-linked policies via its sales agents.
The life insurer plans to set up seven “super agencies” nationwide by the end of next year to better serve its policyholders, he said.
There is also great potential in the local protection policy market, as local policyholders are highly under-protected, Lam said.
Company chief marketing officer Johnny Wong (黃振國) said domestic policyholders averaged benefits of NT$690,000 (US$21,500) from protection policies, down from NT$900,000 in previous years, although clients had an average of two insurance policies each.
Lam said he also planned to double the insurer’s number of telemarketing staff to 400.
After reporting annual growth of 19 percent in premium income in the first 10 months of this year, Lam said he was confident of meeting the company’s annual sales goal of 20 percent to 30 percent growth in the next few years.
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