"Consumers Don’t (1) Understand Ulip Risk (2) Inform Nominees (2) even go through Policy Documents"
Life insurance is a comprehensive financial planning tool. It fulfills the need for protection, growth, savings as well as tax benefits. One needs to understand the basic need that he/she is trying to fulfill.
At a basic level, everyone should have an adequate insurance cover. This cover should be adequate enough for the insured family to continue with the same lifestyle in case something unfortunate happens to the bread winner. Brands should try to educate consumers about this basic tenet of life insurance. Financial literacy is abysmally low in our country and the task is cut out for all the brands. As a step in this direction, we had launched our brand with the KILB (Kum Insurance Lene ki Bimari) campaign. The campaign was aimed at educating people about the concept of adequate insurance. As a thumb rule an individual should have a cover of 8-10 times of his/her annual earnings. The cover corresponding to this amount will to some extent ensure that the lifestyle of the family does not slip considerable in case of a mishap. The campaign got roaring response from the consumer who were interested in knowing how much ideally they should be insured for. The success of this campaign highlights the power of selfless education by a brand. Once this is done, the consumer too reciprocates by placing more trust in the brand.
Educating and guiding consumers has always been at the heart of our communication strategy. This has worked quite well for us, as there is something of significance for the consumer who in turn is willing to listen to the brand. We followed up the KILB campaign by a Pension campaign which did not merely exhort him to buy a pension plan for post retirement. Instead, we again calculated the approximate pension amount a person would require post retirement and then decided on the amount of money one should invest. This helps the consumer in taking an informed decision as opposed to investing without understanding the need or outcome. This win-win proposition helped us achieve substantial penetration of Pension Plans in our product portfolio.
We also launched a series of educative advertisements with the sole intention of helping the consumer plan his life better. As a brand, we passionately believe that if we are able to give right and selfless advice to consumer, we have a higher chance of winning his trust and faith. We found few gaps pertaining to consumer behaviour regarding life insurance. Some of them are as mentioned below:
Consumers never inform their nominee of the insurance cover bought. Hence the nominee is not even aware that there is a policy which can help the consumer tide over the immediate financial crisis. We launched an ad campaign asking consumers to inform their nominees of the cover they have taken.
Many policyholders do not go through their policy documents once they get the cover. Thus in case there is any error/difference in name/age, it becomes more difficult for the nominee to claim. It would help if the consumer goes through the details and confirms it to his satisfaction once he receives it.
Consumers do not understand the risk in ULIPs before investing. We launched an ad campaign explaining that the risk taking ability differs from person to person. Same applies to investing and one should gauge the risk one wants to take before investing in such policies.
There is huge opportunity for brands to simplify and showcase concepts in a simple and clear language. Each and every human being wants to save, protect and grow his earning but, is befuddled with plethora of complicated and convoluted promises. It is the role of a brand to speak to consumer in a language which he understands and relates to.
The communication objective is independent of the medium or ATL/BTL. Irrespective of the medium, the brand which focuses on simplicity and selfless advice will win in the long run.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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