She told Good Returns last week that the company’s headcount had dropped by eight because fewer medical insurance policies were issued after Partners moved from an upfront commission to an as-earned structure.

But her claims that the drop in medical income had led to job losses were met with scepticism.

Among the comments on the article was one from Paul Charles, who said:  “I am somewhat surprised that the unfortunate loss of eight jobs is being totally blamed on the changes to their health commission, which was, after all, nearly eight months ago now. Perhaps the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is getting a little empty?”

Another, Giles Thorman, said: “Why make any mention of changes to commission when answering a query about making staff redundant? Since when have senior underwriters been required to underwrite medical insurance?”

Ballantyne said it was a sign of competitors “looking to compete”.

She said Partners was not alone in having had a restructure in the past year. “Restructures occur when businesses determine they need to cut back on costs, in our industry salaries are one of, if not the biggest cost.  Businesses will cut costs to achieve efficiencies and/or to minimise capital requirements.”

She said the delay between the commission structure changing and the jobs being lost was to allow the company to get a clear view of the situation.

“We waited a number of months following our medical commission changes so we could get a good feel for where our business volumes would end up before taking the steps that we have – which included reducing costs in a number of different ways in addition to restructuring.”

She said Partners now had a good understanding of what future volumes would be.

“Clearly as our business continues to grow over the years ahead we will need to ensure our human resources are sufficient to manage the business – which in all likelihood will mean further hiring, but at this stage we have taken the steps you would expect a prudently run business to do.”