FORTY-FIVE insurance agents have quit National Mutual Asia on the second anniversary of the defection of former chief executive officer Andrew Yang and 650 agents to rival Top Glory.
This time the agents, who were from the same branch, are believed to have joined Canadian Eastern Life Assurance, a member of the Cheung Kong-CIBC Group. They quit on January 10 - the same day they received their annual bonuses.
Terry Smith, chief executive of the territory's only listed insurance company, said: 'In financial terms it means nothing. They left for personal reasons that were not revealed.' He said the company, which employs about 2,600 agents, has a turnover of about 80 staff a month.
It is believed to be the second time in the past 18 months that employees have defected to CEF Insurance to join its 1,000-strong agency. But whereas those sales staff were in the bottom 10 per cent of producers, this group are believed to have been good performers.
Mr Smith said: 'It is important to realise that the turnover of a life insurance company is quite high. Sales would only be reduced by about one per cent as a result of this.' Last year the company lost nearly one in four of its agents through either sackings, defections or wastage. The company blamed the slowdown in last year's full-year results on the drop in productivity resulting from the fall in agents.
The January 1994 defections rocked the company and its share price plunged from $7 to a low of $3.66. Mr Smith, who was appointed to restore stability, has introduced a strategy of concentrating on high-yielding agents rather than high numbers. This has generally been understood and accepted by the market.
