Interview of “Reso” Insurance Company Marketing Director Sergey Safaryan to Mediamax Agency and Banks.am portal

- Which are “Reso” Company’s priorities in the process of forming agent network for CIVOCL (Compulsory Insurance of Vehicle Owners’ Civil Liability) - individuals or legal entities?

- The main strategy of “Reso” both as to CIVOCL and other types of insurance provides for a wide agent network, consisting of individuals. Today, the company already has 1500 individual agents, working both in the capital and the regions. We intend to expand this network to up to 3000 agents.

Of course, simultaneously we carry out work on involving legal entities in agent network as well. The work in this direction is at the final stage, and we will announce its results soon.

- How do you conduct selection of agents and have they passed the corresponding training?

- All the people, who want to become members of the agent network, undergo psychological online test, the questions of which are presented at “Reso” website. The test aims at revealing the potential of the applicant.

The selected candidates undergo two day courses in “Reso School”, which functions in the company, pass an exam and after that they gain the right to work as an agent in CIVOCL market.  

- How is such a numerous agent network managed?

- There is a special directorate on agent network management functioning in the company. It is divided into the capital city and regional networks. The work of concrete agents is managed by managers of the agent networks, who coordinate the work of up to 15 agents.

- What is the mechanism of payment for the insurance policy and does it include commission fee for agent service?

- I want to highlight that the customer exclusively pays the established tariff for CIVOCL agreements, and the commissions for agent services are paid by the insurance company.

Depending on the preference of the customer, they can choose cash or non-cash form of payment. That is to say, the customer may directly pay the agent, at that receiving a payment-account receipt, or make the payment via a bank and present the payment receipt to the agent.

- What is a corporate insurance policy, which is the method for price formation for such a policy, for instance, for taxi services?

- In the corporate insurance policy, issued to legal entities, they mention the number of cars, as well as the personal data of the drivers. 

If, for instance, the taxi service has 10 passenger cars, the right for driving which is provided to 20 drivers, then concerning all 10 cars they take into account the youngest age and the minimum work experience out of all 20 potential drivers.

- How can one differentiate an agent from a swindler?

- All insurance agents are registered in a special register of the Central Bank of Armenia, which issues the corresponding certificates to them. Each agent is also provided an accredited certificate of our company. Only when these documents are presented, the customer can start the corresponding procedures with the agent.

- By the end of the year, all owners of transport means are obliged to insure the transport means. Will the peak of policy sales fall on the share of December?

- Taking into account Armenian mentality, one can assume that the majority of car owners will postpone the procedure till the last moment. In that period, it will not matter to them in which company they will register insurance, the main thing will be to manage to fit into the dates and avoid fine sanctions. In order to avoid lines, they will undoubtedly turn to insurance agents.

This is why at this stage we refrain from carrying out an active advertisement campaign, directing all our resources to formation of an efficient and wide agent network.

Using the occasion, I would like to note that CIVOCL itself is not a profitable, but even unprofitable insurance product. Today we are guided by the official statistics of traffic accidents, and you can imagine how many of them are not officially registered and will start being registered along with CIVOCL introduction.

- Do you believe that affiliation of your company to Russian “Reso-Guarantee”, which has quite significant work experience in the market of compulsory car insurance in Russia, is a competitive advantage for you?

-Our entire strategy and methods of organizing the process of compulsory car insurance are built on Russian “Reso-Guarantee” work experience, which has proved itself successful. One should only note that following the results of this year, “Reso-Guarantee” occupies a leading position on CIVOCL in the Russian market due to its agent network, which mainly consists of individuals.