ABSTRACT
Insurance has usually been interested in marketing its product. This chapter examines the size, distribution and occupational structure of insurance sales forces, and compares the regional networks of provincial offices with the national networks of the bigger metropolitan companies. For the most part, personal methods of control remained viable through the relationships between the company secretaries and agents, and between agents and local shareholders. The chapter explores the process of establishing agencies and indicate some of the ‘principal agent’ problems which insurers faced in keeping control of them and looks at the changing relationship between the insurance companies, their customers and the general public. It was one thing for an insurance office to identify a promising market, appoint an agent and advertise his or her services. All offices had agents who persistently accepted insurance proposals, or gave some guarantee to customers about the terms of a policy without reference to their managers or directors.
