The Korea Life Insurance Association has selected 1,000 agents as "Golden Fellows" this year, drawing from its pool of certified top-performing life insurance agents.
The association said it held the 10th Golden Fellow certification ceremony on the 3rd at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul, under the theme "Trusted Golden Fellows, Trusted Life Insurance." Attendees included Yoo Dong-soo, chairman of the National Assembly's National Policy Committee, Shin Jin-chang, secretary general of the Financial Services Commission, and chief executives of life insurers.
The association created the Golden Fellow program in 2017 to mark the 10th anniversary of its certification system for top-performing agents. Candidates must have received the certification at least five consecutive times, and selections are based on a combined assessment of tenure, the number of consecutive certifications, policy persistency rates, income and contribution to their companies.
The 1,000 Golden Fellows named this year represent 0.83% of the country's 120,813 life insurance agents. Among the 11,460 certified top-performing agents this year, only 8.7% were selected as Golden Fellows.
Golden Fellows had an average tenure of 23.5 years and average annual income of 270.56 million won, the association said. Their policy persistency rate reached 98.4% at the 13th month and 93.6% at the 25th month. For certified top-performing agents overall, average tenure was 17.7 years and average annual income was 142.64 million won, with persistency rates of 97.5% and 91.0% at the 13th and 25th months, respectively.
To mark the 10th ceremony, the association also held a handprinting event featuring life insurer chief executives and a representative Golden Fellow from each company. It was staged under the theme "A Decade of Golden Steps With Consumers, A Century of Trust Promised to Consumers," signaling a commitment to maintaining consumer confidence.
"Digital technology and AI are rapidly changing how finance works, but understanding a customer's life and standing by them in difficult moments is ultimately the work of people," said Kim Chul-joo, chairman of the Korea Life Insurance Association. "The deeper we go into the digital era, the greater the value of a good insurance agent will become."
