CEO Lee Cheol-young Lee of Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance Co.

Hyundai Marine and Fire Insurance Co. won the Korea Financial Grand Award in the non-life insurance section. The award was handed out at the Night of the Financial Community at Westin-Chosun Hotel in downtown Seoul on Dec. 7.

President Lee Cheol-young said he is very appreciative of the great honor. The CEO, who has been at the helm of the non-life insurance company since 2007, has been known for taking jobsites very seriously, as seen from the first action he took on the first day of his inauguration as the CEO, in which he toured jobsites of the company.

He believes that the answers to the various problems facing the company are found at the jobsites. He can listen to the voices of those who are most concerned and hear their ideas on management policies. 

The CEO also believes that public trust is the most important factor in the financial industry. Because the insurance company’s products don’t take on a physical form, employees must have an excellent grasp of the products, but more importantly, they must stick to a pre-established set of principles.

In 1993, the company introduced the “Recommendation System” in which any employee can recommend ideas to improve the operation of the division he belongs to. When the CEO was an executive, the company collected some 7,000 recommendation through the same system and the company saved some nearly 10 billion won in expenses through those ideas, which became a leading corporate culture of communication at the company.

CEO Lee often says that the times when an idea of a person or two changed the management policies of a company have now been passed.

Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance headquarters in Gwanghwamun, downtown Seoul.(Photos:Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance)