PSU general insurers offer marketing role to office staff

Chennai, Jan 24: With their premium income and solvency going southwards apart from suffering underwriting losses, government-owned general insurers have rolled out an incentive scheme for their administrative staff to carry out marketing activity.

The Business Development Incentive Scheme (BDIS) is an effort to bring in profitable retail business and also make the ëfixed costí administrative staff more productive.

   

However, the unions representing the employees and the agents are opposed to the scheme.

ìIt is an irony. The new scheme is being launched at a time when many of the one-man offices are being closed and those who are bringing in business running into lakhs of rupees are asked to do administrative work,î an employee of one of the government insurers told IANS.

A senior industry official preferring anonymity told IANS: ìThe insurers should work out such schemes in a holistic manner than in an isolated way, taking the overall picture in view.î

While agreeing with the view that `fixed costí employees are being made productive, he said: ìThis will not give the desired result. The companies should have only three structural layers – Head Office, Regional Offices and Operational Offices – close/merge branches/divisional offices.î

Such a measure would reduce the companyís management expenses drastically.

According to him, the companies had earlier decided to reduce the number of offices by 25 per cent. Many branches were opened in unviable places to please the politicians, which is biting the companies hard now.

Be that as it may, the new scheme called Business Development Incentive Scheme (BDIS) has been rolled out on a pilot basis till March end.

Under the scheme, administrative staff selected to don the marketing cap will be paid a business development expense of Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,500 based on their existing cadre, along with an incentive-based number of policies and overall profit from the business brought in.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

twenty − 19 =