Kathmandu: Professional Agents Association has threatened to launch agitation against Nepal Life Insurance Company. The move was taken after the company revised its business target for the agency without any prior discussion with the Association.
It has been agreed to hold the final discussion on 26 August after the representative of the Association circled the C0entral office of the ‘Nepal Life Chapter of Professional Agents Association of Nepal last Friday. It has been alleged that the Nepal Life Chapter has come into undue influence of the company’s management to implement the new business target.
The central committee of the Association has formed a 101-member struggle committee under the coordination of Ganesh Adhikari. The same struggle committee will discuss the issue. The central committee has taken stand and demanded for the withdrawal of the new business target for qualifying for agency incentives.
If the company does not withdraw the target, the struggle committee has a planned to agitate against the company. The company has been saying that it has been forced to increase the ceiling as it has spent a lot on the agent commission and cannot afford it. The company is of the view that the ceiling has to be increased as the financial statements as well as the policy bonus rate have been affected due to the large amount of money spent on agency incentives.
There are many agency managers in Nepal Life who do business worth Rs. 1.5 million to Rs. 2.5 million. The company is doing good business on their behalf. Aiming at this group, the company had been providing good service facility in the last year.
On the other hand, the struggle committee has alleged that such work is being done under the influence of agents who have large business volume. They allege that it is unfair not to change the target of large player but to increase the target of lower level agents by more than 200 percent.
There was a rule that agents earning an insurance premium of Rs 1.5 million can become agency manager. But from now on, the agency manager will have to do business worth Rs. 450,000 to qualify for agency manager.
The ceiling of senior agency managers has not been changed much. At present, other life insurance companies are keeping such ceilings very low to attract agents. An agent said, “It would have been natural to add target of Rs. 40,000-50,000 in a year, but the company has increased Rs. 300,000 at a time.”
