Wesleyan Assurance Society has unveiled plans for ambitious growth of its sales force.

The Society, which provides tailored financial services for doctors, dentists, lawyers and teachers, plans to create jobs for over 100 financial consultants.

This represents an increase of 50% in the Society’s sales force and the process is expected to take two years.

Wesleyan is establishing its own training Academy to ensure that it can fill the vacancies with candidates of the right calibre.

The emphasis will be on attracting people who already have some knowledge of Wesleyan’s core markets such as ex-teachers and pharmaceutical representatives.

Craig Errington, the Society’s Chief Executive said, “Since restructuring our Sales Force in 2005 to deliver dedicated financial services to key professional groups, Wesleyan has gone from strength-to-strength.

Our clients value our insight into their professions and our ability to deliver holistic advice and products to meet their particular needs. This has resulted in a significant year-on-year increase in new business.

“We now want to capitalise on this success and meet the growing demand that exists from current and potential customers. Our aim is to provide life-long holistic financial advice and deliver a consistently excellent level of service.

Increasing the number of financial consultants on the ground will help us to achieve this and significantly improve access to our products and services.”

The Academy
The Wesleyan Academy programme offers a mix of theory and on-the-job training. For the first nine weeks candidates live and train together, before heading into the field for practical experience under the supervision of their Area Manager.

Over the course of the training they will return to the Academy for further training sessions.

Ian Lazenby, Wesleyan’s Sales Director said, “We believe that establishing our own training Academy is the right move for Wesleyan.

We want to change the profile of the typical financial consultant and will be training men and women of all ages who have different backgrounds and experiences".

“This is why we’ve chosen to look outside the industry and are focusing on recruiting professionals with the right core skills, which can be developed to make them top class financial consultants.

They will have first class training and continued on-the-job supervision until they are fully qualified and ready to go out on their own".

“We’re confident that we can attract the right calibre of candidate as we’re offering an extremely competitive base salary, which increases on completion of all six Certificates in Financial Planning and Mortgage Advice exams, as well unlimited earnings potential and access to professional client groups made up of doctors, dentists, teachers or lawyers.

We have always ensured that our consultants have a good basic salary so that they spend quality time with clients, delivering the right proposition for their needs, rather than chasing commissions".

“What the academy will give us are well-trained, well-rounded financial consultants, able to relate to our target clients.”

Anyone interested in finding out more about the Academy should email academy@wesleyan.co.uk

For more information and interviews please contact:

Bernadette Bogan or Navdeep Bhatti 0121 200 9609
Wesleyan Press Office press@wesleyan.co.uk

Sophie Hull 0207 404 9660
Vanbrugh Communications

Notes to Editors:
Wesleyan Assurance Society, founded in 1841, is a mutual organisation. Its core values are Insight, Performance and Trust.

Wesleyan offers specialist financial advice to hospital doctors, GPs, dentists, teachers and lawyers, through its principal distribution brands Wesleyan Medical Sickness, Wesleyan for Teachers and Wesleyan for Lawyers.

The Wesleyan Group has in excess of £4 billion of funds under management as at 31 December 2007.

Wesleyan’s pensions With Profits fund was ranked the top with profits performer for single premiums invested over five and ten years in the most recent Money Management Individual Pensions survey (March 2008). In addition the Wesleyan Pensions Managed Fund appeared in the top five performers for single premiums invested over 10 and 15 year periods in the Balanced Managed Fund category.

In 2007 Wesleyan Assurance Society won the ifs Financial Innovation Awards 2007 for Most Effective Customer Segmentation Strategy.

Wesleyan is one of the UK’s financially strongest mutuals, receiving a ten-out-of- ten rating for three consecutive years in the Cazalet Consulting survey of With Profits offices.

Wesleyan came first for realistic free asset ratio (the most significant measure of financial strength for With Profit insurers) in the most recent Ernst & Young review of UK Life Insurance Companies.

Wesleyan came second in Money Management’s most recent financial strength survey (August 2007).

Wesleyan is one of only four UK life companies to receive a rating of Excellent for Financial Strength by A.M Best, a global credit rating organisation.