Insurer NTUC Income sees tide turning

Insurer NTUC Income sees tide turning
By Cheow Xin Yi, TODAY | Posted: 21 August 2007 0954 hrs


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Chief executive Tan Suee Chieh



SINGAPORE: The bloodletting was substantial — a net loss of 303 insurance agents over the past four years.

But the tide has turned for insurer NTUC Income, which saw a net gain of 100 full-time agents as of July.

"The bleeding has stopped," chief executive Tan Suee Chieh told an audience of 1,200, mostly insurance agents, at the Ritz Carlton hotel yesterday, even as he announced a 500-day "Cultural Revolution" focused on NTUC Income employees.

The revamp will include a change in the formal designation of its 560 full-time insurance agents, from "Development Officers" to "Financial Consultants". Mr Tan also announced financial incentives for part-time agents to join the firm full-time.

While he did not offer reasons for past losses, reportedly, many departures over the past year were due to agents' unhappiness over the setting up of a direct sales force with a fixed salary — an initiative by former CEO Tan Kin Lian. Some saw the move as cannibalising the efforts of the mobile agency force.

The direct sales force is still in operation, but is just one out of five channels of sale, including the Internet, the insurer told Today.

Yesterday, Mr Tan — who had embarked on a bold rebranding of the company after taking over in February — said that while the overhaul would carry through to the end of next year, in actuality, "culture change" was an ongoing process. "We are very good in teamwork and execution, but not so good in terms of creativity, taking ownership and expressing our independence of thoughts," he said.

The insurers' general managers will gather for a three-day Sentosa retreat to come up with the blueprint for the transformation. Mr Tan also spoke of expanding recruitment and hinted at possible management changes, with "the acquisition of talent to continue on a vigorous pace".

Income has launched a new insurance product, Revosave. Touted as a hybrid that combines traditional endowment plan features with an investment-linked component, it aims to achieve sales of least $20 million over 12 months, or 16 per cent of the target market share. - TODAY/fa