When an insurer decides that its ca...

When an insurer decides that its career, or captive, agent force has become too precious to maintain, it can make an incision in back on the number of agents, change their working relationship or eliminate them to transform this distribution channel into low-overhead independents.

This growing inclination has spawned a variety of issues For example, in the midst of a major overhaul that dates back to 1994 Prudential Financial Inc. has pared its 18000 career agents to about 4500 Boston-based John Hancock Financial Services Inc. transmuteed its career-agent force into a general agency plan called Signator, in 1999. Late that same year,