Britannic cull leads to promotion for its marketing chief

Britannic Assurance head of marketing David Newman, has been promoted to head of channel management following a cull of the direct sales force.

Newman will be responsible for developing marketing channels for Britannic’s life assurance policies. The channels are: workplace marketing (selling financial products in the workplace); selling through third parties, including the Britannia Building Society and estate agent Spicer Haart; and selling through independent financial advisers.

This follows the demise of the company’s door-to-door sales force, which last month resulted in 2,000 redundancies. The sales team has been cut to 100 staff.

Newman will report to Bill Haynes, managing director of the retail financial services division.

Last year the company reported pre-tax profits of £174.5m, up 7.5 per cent from the previous year. It expects a 40 per cent drop in sales this year, but says the development of channels will see it return to last year’s profit level by 2003.

In January, Britannia Group announced the rebranding of two of its divisions. Evergreen Retirement Assurance became Britannic Retirement Solutions and First Active Financial became Britannic Money.