Insurance agents settle - Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.-United Food and Commercial Workers International Union contract - Developments in industrial relations

Monthly Labor Review, Sept, 1990 by Michael H. Cimini

ance agents settle

Negotiators for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. and the United Food and Commercial Workers reached agreement on a new 3-year contract covering some 2,500 agents in 250 branch offices across the county. The contract reportedly calls for projected average wage and benefit increases of $15.99 a week in the first year, $36.42 in the second year, and $46.63 in the third year.

Under terms of the agreement, the commission, the core of an agent's compensation, is based on three factors: the size of the agent's "book-of-business" (the dollar amount of premiums associated with an agent's sales), the "persistency rate" (the degree to which the policies the agent sells stay in force, basically over a 10-year period), and an agent's first-year commissions. A revised "bonus expense reimbursement allowance," which will now pay a bonus based on the level of an agent's "production" over the minimum, was established effective January 1, 199 1. Effective May 1, 1990, full commissions on annuities or mutual funds purchased by beneficiaries with life insurance death claim proceeds became payable under certain conditions within the replacement period. A new property and casualty commission plan that pays higher commission scales at a faster rate was established effective January 1, 1991. The new plan also allows any agent to earn a renewal commission on policies that had been sold by an agent who is no longer employed by the company.

Other terms include increases of $6.77 per employee (to $144.77) in the company's weekly contribution for medical insurance in 1990, $12.15 in 1991, and $18.15 in 1992; a long-term care option for nursing home or comprehensive (home and nursing home) benefits under the medical plan effective October 1, 1990; extension of health and life insurance options under the flexible medical benefit program to agents retiring in 1990 and later previously available only to active employees), effective January 1, 1991; additional vacation compensation effective January 1, 1991; and, effective April 1, 1990, a guaranteed match of 4 percent of an agent's gross earnings when that individual invests at least 3 percent of his or her gross earnings in the savings and investment plan.