PROFILE

It’s all about transformation

Six weeks into her role as chief executive of Fidelity Life Melissa Cantell sat down with ASSET to tell us about her goals.

We have another woman leading a life insurance company in New Zealand, this time it is 43-yearold Melissa Cantell. She took up reins at Fidelity Life after Nadine Tereora unexpectedly quit the role.

Cantell has ascended into the role as the company is mid-flight through a fiveyear transformation programme.

A week after sitting down with ASSET Cantell’s newly-inherited team rolled out Fidelity Life’s new commission structure. This is a big deal for advisers and for the company.

Like Partners Life, Fidelity is using a score sheet to set commission levels. The three factors in its matrix are persistency (60%), in-force policy count (30%) and conversion rate (10%).

Advisers are scored in five bands across these three metrics.

A weighted score is then calculated and this corresponds to four commission bands. The lowest commission is 150% and the highest 240%, with intermediate bands of 180% and 210%.

Cantell said she was happy with the model and has not changed anything. “It’s got my full backing,” she says. The new approach is about transparency and making things sustainable for the company, she adds.

“We are trying to take an approach that does look and feel a bit different.”

Eyebrows up

Cantell's appointment raised a few eyebrows across the industry as her most recent role was with general insurer IAG, rather than life insurance. At IAG she was chief operating officer and she took on the role of Covid response director.

She spent nearly six years at IAG and before that had stints at Coca-Cola Amatil as general manager coffee and alcohol, as well as six years with Fonterra as general manager specialty cheese and head of legal.

Yes, she is a trained lawyer – completing her degree at Auckland University and then doing a stint at Bell Gully.

But if you have any doubts about her passion for insurance, you shouldn’t.

“I joined the industry by accident and I stayed on purpose,” she says, going on to say that “it’s the most meaningful industry I have worked in.

Cantell sheets her passion back to when she took over the running of a claims team and went on the frontline listening to calls from customers.

“I spent time on the ground with [the claims team],” she says. “I was just suddenly struck how important [insurance] was. I had never thought about it from that point of view.”

It sounds a tad clichéd (even though she doesn’t do clichés) when she says: “What gets me out of bed in the morning …? “Genuinely helping people.”

Genuine comes across as one of her characteristics. Cantell is not likely to be one of these life insurance company CEOs who are tied to their desk.

When asked what sort of CEO she aspires to be Cantell says there are two choices.

“The one who’s sitting in the back office with the door closed with my nose in my internal business, or the one who is out talking to advisers and our partners keeping conversation alive and trying to solve things together – my aspiration is to be the latter. “My job to do now is to live up to that.” While she hasn’t spent a lot of time with advisers yet (thanks to Covid-19 and Auckland’s lockdown) she promises that she will be out there soon.

“What you see is what you get” is one of those phrases Cantell likes to use. And, by her own admission, she likes to talk.

While IAG used brokers and Cantell has some experience with third party distribution she recognises there is more to learn.

We are trying to take an approach that does look and feel a bit different

She describes life insurance as the “next iteration” of her learning about this channel.

The good news for advisers is that she is “a great believer” in the adviser channel. And so are the company’s customers. From research it is “clear our customers see value in their adviser”.

But that doesn’t mean Fidelity won’t look at other channels in the future.

“Yeah, quite possibly,” she says when asked about other channels.

“I say that open-endedly and wouldn’t rule it out.”

But she does point out no one has yet worked out how to do a pure direct play with life insurance “and it shows me that is not the answer”.

Our conversation is littered with phrases like “customer-led”.

Transformers

Cantell takes the helm at Fidelity Life as it embarks on a journey of transformation – and that is one thing she is big on.

From her LinkedIn profile: “I have a particular interest in business transformations and enjoy the challenge of developing and delivering comprehensive growth or turnaround plans.”

I joined the industry by accident and I stayed on purpose

The first stages of the change are nearly finished. One was around brand and the second is technology.

The company is soon to roll out Project Watson (named after company founders Gordon and Shirley Watson).

She says all transformation projects have technology as their cornerstone. When the company launches its Adviser Portal, advisers will see changes which give them more time to spend with their customers. What comes next is Cantell’s mission. She says the end goal is clear – to reimagine life insurance for New Zealanders, but the path to the goal is something different.

“There are many, many choices we can make,” she says. “The challenge for me is to make the right choices at the right time. “We are not short of ideas.” Currently the company is doing some customer research on new products and potential service improvements through Qualtrics.

The research is intended to understand what is working and what isn’t.

This all fits back to Cantell’s talk of making changes which are customer-led.

As a young and modern CEO she talks about using data and analytics to make changes. Indeed she believes insurance companies have massive amounts of data but have not traditionally been good at using it.

With Cantell leading Fidelity Life you can expect to see changes.

“I’m not afraid to change things – it adds to our aspiration of helping customers.”

Coming from general insurance and FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) she says “I am not a lifer in life [insurance].”

She brings a “fresh set of eyes” and says she “naturally look[s] at things differently”.

“Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

“What I love is transformational change.

“I suspect you will hear lots of sound bites and lots of things people should be saying but that is not how I operate. “With me what you see is what you get.” A