GUIDELINES FOR DEVELOPING THE COMPETENCE OF LIFE INSURANCE AGENTS FOR LIFE INSURANCE BUSINESS IN THAILAND
Keywords:
Life Insurance Agents, Competency Development, Human Resource DevelopmentAbstract
This study aims to investigate the problems associated with the competency of life insurance agents in Thailand, compare the differences between internal and external factors that affect the development of life insurance agent competency, including limitations, study, analyze, and identify factors that support the competence of life insurance agents, and provide guidelines for developing the competence of life insurance agents in Thailand. This is a combined study utilizing quantitative data from questionnaires distributed to 411 executives in Thailand's life insurance agent management departments and qualitative data from in-depth interviews with 17 individuals, including senior executives in the life insurance agent management department, academics in the life insurance industry, and government officials in regulatory agencies.
The findings of this study indicate that the process of developing the competence of life insurance agents is significantly impacted by three factors: the level of management, the number of regulated life insurance agents, and the annual objective amount of new life insurance. These factors were statistically significant at levels of 0.05, and .01, respectively. Multiple regression analysis reveals a statistically significant correlation between the human resource development process and the overall competence of life insurance agents. The study found that the following competencies were positively associated with the human resource development process: knowledge and comprehension of life insurance products, communication, decision-making, relationship management, analytical thinking and problem solving, and technology adaptation. The evaluation of human resource development has a statistically significant impact at the .05 and .01 significance level on the enhancement of life insurance agents' competencies across all domains. In addition, the development of competencies for life insurance agents in Thailand requires the synthesis of eight management-based guidelines. These strategies are designed to meet the requirements of life insurance agents in terms of competency development.
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