Bancassurance and its status around the world - Scor

Indeed, advisers sometimes need to hold a special
qualification to be able to sell insurance policies.
For example, in France, you have to hold a national
diploma awarded after a minimum of 135 hours of
training, which entitles you to a card required to sell
insurance. “Crédit Agricole has 18,000 cardholders
in its 9,000 branches”, boasts Edouard de Bonnafos,
Technical and Products Director at Predica.
This is also true in Asia and notably in South Korea
where, as well as this diploma, the law restricts the
number of people authorized to sell insurance
policies to two per point of sale. Nonetheless,
in bancassurance, there are many special
arrangements: “a banker who sells financial
products must be able to sell insurance policies”,
as Mr Jean-Patrick Simon, Director of SH&C, points
out.
Of course, the training pattern varies from one
company to another. However, here we propose
to cover the main factors common to most
bancassurance operators:
● As a general, training is provided by product
specialists chosen for their training and
coaching skills. In addition, they may often
have been involved in designing the new
insurance product they are explaining;
● The programmes are either aimed at a small
number of people trained at company or
regional headquarters, who will then train the
branch personnel, or targeted directly at the
sales force in the field;
● As a rule, training focuses specifically on
insurance products. Nevertheless, certain
bancassurance operators prefer to integrate
the training sessions with their partner bank’s
total training programme. At Cardif, for
example, training is not only about the product.
For example, part of it will focus on insurance
policies in a course devoted to life insurance
products, partly in order to show how these
policies work, but above all to show how they
complement the bank's other products
(advantages compared with collective
investment vehicles, etc);
16 focus october 2005 Bancassurance
● In order to achieve better results when
launching new products, courses are
scheduled for the weeks before these products
are made commercially available. Nevertheless,
changes to the characteristics of existing
products do not necessarily result in a new
training programme.
However, it would be too reductive to restrict
training plans to coincide with the launch of
new products. That is why at Altavida Seguros
de Vida, Groupe Santander’s Chilean subsidiary,
courses are also provided at the
request of the sales force or if regional
managers perceive a need on their tours of
bank branches;
● In order to give the sales force additional
support, certain bancassurance operators
(e.g. BNP Paribas Assurance) have even
developed e-learning systems, which can be
accessed at any time by the local network and
sometimes in foreign subsidiaries.
Remuneration
Distributing these life insurance policies, whether
through a joint venture or distribution agreements,
has a cost for insurance companies. It is essential to
heighten the awareness of sales forces of the need
to sell insurance policies. As we have seen, this is
done partly through training, but also by a new
commission policy.
Whether in bancassurance or traditional networks,
the products that are the easiest to sell and the most
profitable for financial advisers, are the ones that
have the most success. In order to motivate the
teams to sell insurance products, it is therefore
essential to offer them appropriate rewards.
However, rewarding sales forces within the
framework of a multi-channel distribution process
is not necessarily easy. Who should get the
commission: the network sales personnel, the
telephone advisers, the points of sale? Who can sell
what and how do you set targets?
Under the Crédit Agricole system, Predica pays
commission to the Caisses Régionales du Crédit
Agricole Mutuel (CRCAM) and also adds a system