Study On Supervision And Management Of Insurance Agents

Insurance agents are organizations or individuals which are entrusted by insurancecompanies to charge commissions to insurance companies and act on insurance business withinthe range authorized by insurance companies. While marketing products, insurance agents alsopromote insurance knowledge, provide insurance services, which make it the backbone of theinsurance industry. The development of insurance agents influences the overall trend of theinsurance industry. In order to regulate the insurance market, protect social public interests,safeguard the good development of insurance agents and insurance industry, it is necessary tostrengthen regulations for insurance agents.This paper analyzes the importance of insurance agent regulations. Based on theoreticalresearches on“public interest theory”,“private interest theory”and“political theory”, thispaper summarizes the status quo and existing regulatory problems of insurance agents in China.At the same time, this paper sums up the regulatory modes and expertise of insurance agents indeveloped countries like the United States and Japan, trying to draw lights from theirexperience. On this basis, this paper also puts forward measures to set up insurance agentregulations in China.This paper is featured as follow: 1, Focus analysis on the important status of the state ininsurance agent supervision. Supervision should be strengthened from the followingaspects:Improve the legal system, especially the "Insurance Law" and "insurance agentadministrative regulations.”Reform the tax policy of insurance agents. Clarify the legal positionof agents.Reform the commission system of insurance agents.Intensify the authentication ofagents qualification and enhance the overall quality of them. 2, Stress the regulatory role of theindustry autonomy association plays for insurance agents. Its regulatory functions are embodiedin the following aspects:Set up self-discipline codes for insurance agents. Set constraints on theprofessional skills, professional ethics, behavior norms of insurance agents, and supervise theirperformance.Build insurance agent information network, deal with and report customercomplaints and play a warning role in the agent team. Safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of agents and assist agents to handle unreasonable requirements of customers.Organize exchanges and discussions among insurance agents and other departments, and urgethe coordination among departments of the association to exert the greatest effects. 3, Value thesupervision function of public opinion on insurance agents. These functions are reflected in:improving the overall insurance consciousness of the society; instilling integrity into theconcept of insurance agents; establishing just and fair reporting mechanism of social media. 4,Intensify the supervision to insurance agents within the insurance company. The supervisionwill be carried out mainly through personnel management, financial management, trainingmanagement, commission management, behavior management, professional ethics management,and improvement of "Fundamental Law".Insurance agent supervision should follow the principle of regulating according to law,moderate supervision, and safeguarding social public interest and conductive to the sustainabledevelopment of the insurance industry. From state supervision, industry autonomy, insurancecompany management and supervision by public opinion, this paper proposed focus ofinsurance agent regulations and corresponding measures. For example, the improvement ofinsurance legislation, tax policy support for agents from the state, clarification of legal status ofagents, improvement of training system of the insurance company, reform of the commissionsystem of insurance agents and elimination of misunderstanding by public opinions will allcontribute to the construction of extrude regulatory systems, which will play a positive role inthe sustainable development of insurance agents.