ASB swells its insurance sales force

ASB Bank has continued to beef up its new insurance sales force, adding four new insurance managers in recent months to the 11 recruited late last year.

James Mitchell, ASB’s head of relationship banking and financial services, declined to give sales figures but said growth was strong enough to justify expanding the sales team.

About half the managers are based in Auckland, where the bank has its strongest banking presence, with the remainder dotted around the country.

They sell a range of products including life, disability and income protection. Mortgage insurance continues to be sold by ASB’s banking staff.

Target clients include ASB’s personal, business and rural customers.

Mitchell says the managers don’t cold call. Clients are referred to them by bank staff. "The strategy is about selling product to our existing customer base. It very much relies on the quality of the referrals generated by bank staff, and the quality of the bank-customer relationship."

Some of the managers were recruited from within ASB and a few are migrants with previous insurance industry experience, he said.

They are employees and are paid using a mixture of base salary and commission. "Our people don’t do the sort of cold calling brokers do and our remuneration reflects that."

The bank would continue to add more managers as needed. Once business in a region reached a certain level, the territory would be redistributed and more people added.

The managers sell products manufactured by Sovereign, ASB’s insurance subsidiary. Sovereign also manages and underwrites the policies.