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3.
Before debating about the distribution channels of the insurance industry, it is worth
studying about the reach of Insurance in India. According to Swiss Re Sigma study
World Insurance 2014 report, India ranked 11 th among 88 countries with respect to
total Life insurance premium and ranked 20 th with respect to total non-life insurance
premium.1
The reach of insurance is measured by its density and penetration. The measure of
insurance penetration and density reflects the level of development of insurance
sector in a country. While insurance penetration is measured as the percentage of
insurance premium to GDP, insurance density is calculated as the ratio of premium
to population (per capita premium).
Insurance Manager
Direct
Intermediaries
Agents
Brokers
Web aggregators
Direct sales: Insurance companies have their sales team where by the
sales managers, team leaders procure their business by contacting their
customers. This direct selling can be either through online or through offline
mode. The responsibility of the sales manager is multifold as he has to find
the prospective customer, assess his risk with respect to life or non-life, find
out his risk bearing capacity, analyze the circumstances of underwriting such
risk by the insurer and finally suggest a best insurance product of his
company to the customer. Apart from selling the product, the respective
salesperson (here the insurance manager) is solely responsible for followup
with the customer for prompt payment of premiums, support him during
claims and be at the back of him till he gets the claim settlement. Hence,
right from the identification of a prospective customer, servicing him with risk
mitigation and supporting him till his claim settlement, these insurance
managers have a greater role. Although, it is a great advantage that he is
representing the company directly, there is always the other side of the same
coin that he is aware about the products of respective insurer only and he
may not know about the other competitive products offered by other
insurance companies to cover the same risk at much competitive price.
Moreover, the high attrition rate among the employee-sales managers in
insurance sector is also alarming that, a customer can never rely on a
particular insurance sales manager throughout his life.
Agents: Agents are the primary intermediary between the insurer and the
insured. Agents may be categorized as individual agents and corporate
agents representing both life and non-life insurance sector. A person can be
an agent with one life insurance company and one non-life insurance
company as per latest IRDA regulations. A person can become an insurance
agent only upon clearing IRDA agent examination. This mandatory issue
assures the quality of insurance selling.
Role of agents under IRDA regulations:
o
o
o
An agent should be well versed in all the plans, the selling points and
also be equipped to assess he needs of the clients.
Adherence to the prescribed Code of Conduct for agents is of crucial
importance. Agents must, therefore, familiarize themselves with
provisions of the Code of Conduct.
Agents must provide the office with the accurate information about the
prospect for a fair assessment of the risk involved. The agents
confidential report must, therefore, be completed very carefully.
Agents must also possess adequate knowledge of policy servicing and
claim settlement procedures so that the policyholders can be guided
correctly.
Submission of proposal forms and proposal deposit to the branch office
immediately to avoid delays and to enable the office to take timely
decisions.
A leaflet or brochure containing relevant features of the plan that is
being sold should be available with the agents.
A Better Way
The Holy Grail of persuasion, then, is to get others to buy into the idea, and want to do it
your way. And the best way of doing that is in a way that others dont notice. But how?
The fable of the sun and the wind is a good example:
The wind and the sun decided to have a competition to decide once and for
all who was stronger. They agreed that the winner would be the one who
could persuade a man to take off his coat. The wind blew and blew, but the
man only held on more tightly to his coat. Then the sun shone gently down,
and within minutes, the man took off his coat.
The moral here is that you cant force someone to do what they dont
want; instead, the art of persuasion is to get them to want what you
want.
Analytical ability: