Manulife to grow agency force, looking for partners

By ALFEAN HARDY
MANULIFE Holdings Bhd is looking to grow its agency force and is in talks to expand its bancassurance distribution network as it looks to maximise on opportunities amidst the current economic climate, its group CEO Michael Chan Yui Lung said.
Speaking to reporters on April 24 after the company's AGM in Kuala Lumpur, Chan said Manulife was keen to grow its agency force, which currently numbers about 1,500 nationwide.
"The percentage of new business coming from the agency force is about 73% of (new sales)," he said. "Our target this year is to recruit between 600 and 800 new agents," he added. Chan said the current situation was ideal to increase Manulife's agency force.
"The current economic situation may make a lot of people fear that they will lose their jobs and our agency force can provide them with an opportunity to join," he said.
"This is a good (time) for us to recruit more agents and we've seen the number of new agents joining us increase by about 10% so far this year. There is plenty of opportunity to grow here in terms of life insurance operations, given the penetration (rate) of about 40% in the Malay market alone," he added.
Chan said Manulife was also keen on growing its bancassurance dist ribut ion chain. The company currently has bank partnerships with four banks, HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd, Citibank Malaysia, Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd and OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Bhd.
"This gives us a range of about 200 branches (nationwide)," he added.
Chan also said the company was in active talks with a few potential partners but declined to elaborate until negotiations have firmed up.
Asked to elaborate on agency recruitment, Manulife Financial executive vice president and South-East Asia operations general manager Philip Hampden-Smith said it was during these challenging times that the quality of agents being recruited also improved.
"We get a lot of people from banks and qualified professionals like accountants who come to us... not just in Malaysia but in Asia as well," he said.
"And insurance companies have a slightly longer term perspective on the markets or seem to in the way they do their business, so that makes us an attractive proposition in terms of the financial services sector. So we're expanding rather than contracting," he added.

(The Malaysian Reserve, April 27, 2009, p4)