Four-year-old financial advice business Coversure has expanded overseas to support its growth in New Zealand, and here chief executive Jason Venu (pictured above) talks about the strategic move.
Venu, whose camp recently opened an office in the Philippines, explained that the offshore team (pictured below) consists of client services representatives who will focus on supporting the client-facing financial advisers in NZ.
“There’s a fine balance between workload, mental health, and just going on the mission of reaching the uninsured,” Venu told Insurance Business. “And how can we do that? What tasks can we take off our financial advisers and have someone else do them so that they do the important part?
“What parts can be done by a support person? That’s what we looked at. So, we’re hopeful in seeing an increase in productivity in the team. So far, just the fact that they know that they have a dedicated person to help them behind the scenes is a great thing.”
For the insurance boss, the new Coversure branch means sustainable growth at both ends, and not a means to take away jobs from the Kiwi workforce. In fact, according to Venu, they scouted the local labour market first, with little success.
“When we posted an ad up, the numbers that applied were very, very low,” he said. “We explored staffing options here, but it came down to we’re not getting the pool of talent that we were hoping for.”
Now, with the current set-up, Venu believes they are poised to grow the adviser roster in New Zealand as well as the support unit in Asia.
“Because we’ve been able to open a Philippine office and have staff that work directly for us there, now we can grow here and have financial advisers here in New Zealand and know that the service that they’ll deliver won’t be compromised because they’ve got the support to back them up,” Venu told Insurance Business.
“Because we now have an amazing support team, we can therefore grow our New Zealand team even more and have more financial advisers. And as more financial advisers come on board, we can then grow the Philippine side even more and have more support staff to support them.
“By increasing our support staff, it allows to not only be sustainable in New Zealand but also allows Coversure to invest further more into the business, delivering positive outcomes for not only our staff but also, most importantly, our clients.”
The key thing during the process, Venu said, was finding the right people who share the company’s values and vision.
“I’m friends with one of the recruitment companies over there,” he told Insurance Business. “The cool thing is, is that our values align and he totally gets what I’m trying to achieve. Because of that, he was able to screen people according to Coversure’s values, Coversure’s vision, Coversure’s purpose.
“All in all, we probably interviewed over 30 people. I went over there to personally chat to them. People make the business. It was very important that I was there and part of the process… And we are still looking for talent to join our business here. The thing is, it’s about finding the right people to sit in with your culture.”
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