Work in progress to boost name of insurance sales job

Nairobi County Senator-elect Gidion Mbuvi (alias Mike Sonko) at the public terraces during the 48th Madaraka (Independence) Day celebrations at Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi on June 1, 2011. Photo/PHOEBE OKALL  NATION

 

By  PAULINE KAIRU

The job of selling insurance has traditionally been viewed as a tough one, entailing many vain attempts to negotiate with non-receptive clients. Accordingly, it is perceived by many as the job to take up when all else have failed. And you wouldn’t have to look far to get one, irrespective of your qualifications.

This attitude has fanned a vicious cycle involving poor sales techniques, unforthcoming clients, a less admired job, and desperate companies ready to employ anyone showing the slightest of interest to sell their products.

Now change is in the air, with some players in the industry having invested in systems aimed at professionalising the job.

In mid-January, AIG Kenya Insurance Company Ltd held an event that might not have received much attention. It feted top insurance agents in a ceremony particularly crafted to deliver a message to students, job seekers or prospective entrepreneurs that insurance sales work deserved being considered as a first choice career.

It was part of a determined effort by the company to reverse the bad publicity that the job of insurance sales had acquired over time.

The company has invested in a programme that gives insurance agents and aspiring ones the tools and skills they need to conduct business with today’s highly sophisticated client.

A partnership with Kenyatta University further seeks to help redefine insurance work and attract young brains from tertiary institutions to embrace insurance as a career and not as a stepping stone.

The aim is to nurture the young brains to either start their own businesses or identify careers within the insurance industry.

According to AIG Kenya assistant general manager for distribution and marketing, Ms Catherine Igathe, new challenges in the industry coupled with today’s overly alert and aware customers and highly changing economic environment imply that insurance agents can no longer remain as mere salesmen as has traditionally been the case.

“Today’s agent must not only be fully conversant with the broad spectrum of insurance products offered by the insurer, but they must also be able to give good financial advice and offer insurance coverage that fit the specific needs of prospective clients,” she argues.

That, she says, also calls for appreciating the changes in the business landscape, such as the use of modern technology in transactions.

“We are telling them (insurance agents) that they need smart-phones so that they don’t always have to be running from one corner of the city to the other for face-to-face meetings with clients who might not have time for long meetings...We are inculcating in them the value of working smart.”

And it’s not just that. Ms Igathe adds that insurance sales agents need to be entrepreneurially sound to be able to sustain their businesses. Thus, entrepreneurship is among a set of courses that the firm is offering in its training division - the AIG Insurance Excellence Academy.

Agents also receive

 

Of the 350 agents, about 30 per cent are in the form of registered companies with their own employees. Enabling them to grow provides the opportunity for them to employ more people