Scandal-hit Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. announced a medium-term business plan Tuesday focused on regaining credibility over the next two years.
The plan, which runs until March 2008, is based on a business improvement plan it gave to the Financial Services Agency on Nov. 18 after the insurer was found to have rejected legitimate payout requests.
"We put priority on regaining customers' trust," President Kenji Matsuo told a news conference.
The business plan revolves around the idea of reinforcing the company's internal monitoring system for insurance payouts and governance.
The insurer will increase the number of staff tasked with internal management by 40 percent to 200 and reduce the number of sales and general management staff by 10 percent each, to 380 and 710 respectively.
It will establish a committee system similar to that used by U.S. firms, abandoning the auditor-monitored system employed by many Japanese companies.
In addition, Matsuo said, Meiji Yasuda will focus on boosting the quality of its sales staff by teaching them how to provide more consulting services. In the past, the firm tended to stress how many new contracts were sold.
The FSA banned the insurer in October from selling new products for two weeks and barred it from developing new insurance products.
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