Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance Appoints Executive from Agent Background... Kim Yong-beom's 'Amoeba Management' Gains Momentum

Thorough Performance-Based Rewards Focused on Ability
"Each Employee as a Manager"

Kim Yong-beom, Vice Chairman of Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance has produced its first case of an insurance planner who started as an agent, rose to head of headquarters, and then became an executive.

On the 1st, Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance announced the appointment of Park Heung-cheol, head of the Mokpo headquarters, as a sales specialist executive. Since his appointment as head of the Mokpo headquarters in December 2016, Park has recorded outstanding achievements in sales and recruiting, leading to his selection as a sales specialist executive this time.

Head Park will receive the same treatment as existing executives, including vehicle support, medical expenses and health checkups (including spouse), children's tuition, and support for CEO education programs. He will also attend monthly management meetings with equal status to executives from other departments. This is the first case of promotion to a formal executive while holding the status of a sales contract worker as an individual entrepreneur, not a regular employee.

Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance introduced the entrepreneur-type head of headquarters system in 2016. The personnel system was restructured to allow planners to grow into sales managers.

The professional limitations were removed so that planners, who only had to do sales, could grow into managers. Accordingly, as of the first half of the year, among 260 heads of headquarters nationwide, 160 are former planners who demonstrate their expertise in the sales field and showcase their capabilities.

In particular, starting this year, the sales executive system has been expanded to appoint heads of headquarters who achieve certain sales performance standards as executives regardless of their background, gender, or age.

This innovation continues under Kim Yong-beom, Vice Chairman of Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance, who has emphasized thorough performance-based rewards for sales activities. Vice Chairman Kim leads performance-centered amoeba management. Amoeba management is a management method that divides the company organization into small groups by department, encouraging each individual to have the awareness of being a manager. It has motivated employees by providing industry-leading performance bonuses.

The salary level of employees is the highest in the industry. In the first half of the year, the average salary per Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance employee was 62.3 million KRW, an increase of 5.72 million KRW compared to the same period last year. This amount exceeds the salaries of major competitors by more than 20 million KRW.

This management method has led to improved performance. In the first half of this year, Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance’s net profit was 291.9 billion KRW, a 36.8% increase compared to the same period last year. Sales also rose 10.1% to 4.9337 trillion KRW compared to last year. Vice Chairman Kim, who succeeded in his third consecutive term in March, expressed his commitment to long-term growth by setting a goal to achieve a net profit of 1.5 trillion KRW by 2024.

A Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance official said, "By establishing a promotion system where planners can become formal executives solely based on objective sales performance, we have completed an organization like a paradise for planners," adding, "Soon, 2 to 3 more heads of headquarters from sales planner backgrounds are expected to be promoted to executives."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.