RESEARCH PROBLEM

RESEARCH PROBLEM: The problem of research was- "To make a

study of the consumer's perception about Life nsurance sector (.e. how
they perceive about life insurance and what criteria's they consider
before taking a life insurance policy) and to study the brand awareness
of Reliance Life among them. The study was carried out with the
following objectives in mind:
a) To know about the various nvestment alternatives that is mostly
preferred by the people.
b) To find out the important criteria's that people think are important
before investing in a life insurance policy and
c) To find out the brand awareness of Reliance Life nsurance among
the people.

3.2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: To analyze the problem given and
to conduct the study among the people, the surveying was done with the
help of a 'Questionnaire' (which is attached as a part of the annexure in
the report) was adapted. To know the consumer's perception about what
they think is important before taking a life insurance policy, eight (8)
main criteria's were listed out to them, those are:
a) Premium
b) Charges taken by company,
c) Policy Term
d) Rider Benefits provided by the company
e) Bonus and interest paid by the company
f) Services provided by company (pre and post sales),
g) Accessibility of the company &
h) Company mage.
SAMPLE SIZE: After due consultation with the company supervisor as well
as with the college guide, also keeping in mind the requirements of the
company for the research, the sample size that was found to be
appropriate for the study was 100.
SAMPLING TECHNIQUE: The sampling technique that adapted to conduct
the survey was 'Simple Random Sampling' and the area of the research
was concentrated in the city of Bangalore only. The survey was conducted
by visiting different Reliance web world branches in places like
koramangala and Jayanagar in the city of Bangalore.
RESEARCH FINDINGS:
Various Investment AIternatives AvaiIabIe to consumers:
To begin with the analysis, let us see what are the various investment
alternatives that are available to the people and among that which are
the most preferred one. Now, from the data collected from the 100
respondents which were surveyed through the questionnaire, the
following representation can be made:

So, from the above representation it can be seen that 18% of the people
think that nsurance is the most preferred investment alternative that is
available to them, followed by alternatives such as Mutual Fund (15%),
PPF (13%), Real Estate (13%) etc. The reason that can be attributed for
the liking of people towards insurance may be because of that insurance
provides both life cover as well as security to the holder of the policy and
also to the family members of the insurance holders. As well as now a
days insurance are also providing option to invest in the markets through
plans like ULP, which gives the holder both the life cover as well as an
opportunity to earn income at the market rate. So, these are the reasons
why people like to invest in the insurance in comparison to others.




SEGMENTATION OF THE RESPONDENTS ON THE BASIS OF
CERTAIN IMPORTANT CRITERIA'S:
Investment AIternatives Preffered by PeopIe
50, 18%
41, 15%
33, 13%
33, 13%
31, 12%
26, 10%
21, 8%
19, 7%
10, 4%
nsurance
Mutual Fund
PPF
Real Estate
Bank Deposits
Equity
Post Office
Gold and Silver
Bonds and Debntures

Now, let turn our attention towards the respondent who were covered
under this study. These respondents can be categorized on the basis of
certain important criteria like age group, annual income, have previous
life insurance policy and awareness about Reliance Life nsurance in the
following way:

Age group:





From this representation we can see that 58% of the respondent belonged
to the age group of below 30 years, followed by 31% who belonged to the
age group
age group
> 60 yrs. 51 - 60 yrs. 41 - 50 yrs. 301- 40 yrs. < 30 yrs.
Frequency
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
age group
58 58.0 58.0 58.0
31 31.0 31.0 89.0
7 7.0 7.0 96.0
3 3.0 3.0 99.0
1 1.0 1.0 100.0
100 100.0 100.0
< 30 yrs.
31 - 40 yrs.
41 - 50 yrs.
51 - 60 yrs.
> 60 yrs.
Total
Valid
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
age group between 31-40 years and the other persons were who belonged
to other age groups were small in number.

AnnuaI income




From the above representation we can see that 31% of the respondents
belonged to a group which has an annual income of more than 5 lakh,
followed by 27% who belonged to the group of annual income between 1-3
lakh and 23 % who have an annual income between 3-5 lakh. Among the
100 respondents, two of them were unwilling to express their annual
income to us, which represents the missing system in the chart presented
above.


HoId Iife insurance poIicy
annual income
annual income
> Rs. 5 lakh Rs. 3.01 - 5 lakh Rs. 1.01 - 3 lakh < Rs. 1 lakh
Frequency
40
30
20
10
0
annuaI income
17 17.0 17.3 17.3
27 27.0 27.6 44.9
23 23.0 23.5 68.4
31 31.0 31.6 100.0
98 98.0 100.0
2 2.0
100 100.0
< Rs. 1 lakh
Rs. 1.01 - 3 lakh
Rs. 3.01 - 5 lakh
> Rs. 5 lakh
Total
Valid
System Missing
Total
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent




Among the 100 respondents that were taken as a sample size, 77 of them
had life insurance policy that was either taken by him/her self or it was
taken by their parents on their name, while 23 of them did not have any
kind of Life insurance policy from any company.

Awareness about-ReIiance Life


hoId Iife insurance poIicy
23 23.0 23.0 23.0
77 77.0 77.0 100.0
100 100.0 100.0
no
yes
Total
Valid
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
hold life insurance policy
hold life insurance policy
yes no
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
100
80
60
40
20
0
awareness-RIL
64 64.0 64.0 64.0
36 36.0 36.0 100.0
100 100.0 100.0
no
yes
Total
Valid
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent



Now coming to the point of awareness among the people about
Reliance Life nsurance, the response was very disappointing from the
point of view of the company. Out of 100 respondents not less than 64
respondents did not have the knowledge that Reliance has also come to
the life insurance sector by overtaking the Australia based life insurance
company AMP SANMAR, while the rest 36 had knowledge of the
acquisition of AMP SANMAR by Reliance.
IMPOPRTANT CRITERIA'S BEFORE TAKING AN LIFE INSURANCE
POLICY:
Now, let us see what criteria's people consider most important before
taking a life insurance policy (the criteria's for the study have been
mentioned before). Here, the most important criteria as perceived by the
people are being rated as 1 and the least important criteria is being
rated as 8, (as there are 8 criteria's that have been suggested under the
research study). Here the number of respondent is only 77, because
awareness-RL
awareness-RL
yes no
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
those people who do not have any life insurance policy have been
excluded from the purview of the study.
PREMIUM:






Now if we consider one of the criteria we can see that 54.5% of the
respondent has rated it as the most important thing that they consider
before taking any insurance policy from any company, while no body has
rated it as the least important criteria. So, it can be clearly interpreted that
PREMIUM
42 42.0 54.5 54.5
6 6.0 7.8 62.3
6 6.0 7.8 70.1
6 6.0 7.8 77.9
11 11.0 14.3 92.2
5 5.0 6.5 98.7
1 1.0 1.3 100.0
77 77.0 100.0
23 23.0
100 100.0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Total
Valid
System Missing
Total
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
PREMUM
PREMUM
7 6 5 4 3 2 1
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
50
40
30
20
10
0
premium that the policy holder has to pay to continue his/her policy plays a
very important role before selecting the terms and conditions of the policy
and also the company from which the policy is to be taken.
CHARGES:




Now if we consider the charges the customer has to pay to the insurance
company like Fund Management charges, administration charges etc. most
of the people consider it as a important criteria which can dictate the terms
before deciding on whether to take the policy or not. But very few people
CHARGES
6 6.0 7.8 7.8
7 7.0 9.1 16.9
17 17.0 22.1 39.0
20 20.0 26.0 64.9
12 12.0 15.6 80.5
9 9.0 11.7 92.2
3 3.0 3.9 96.1
3 3.0 3.9 100.0
77 77.0 100.0
23 23.0
100 100.0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Total
Valid
System Missing
Total
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
CHARGES
CHARGES
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
30
20
10
0
(only 7.8% of the total respondents), considers that it can be the most
important criteria before taking the decision on life insurance policy.
POLICY TERM:


The tenure of the policy i.e. the policy term depends on the policy holder
but sometimes the insurer can also influence the policy term by giving
some additional benefits on policies taken for a longer period of time or vice
versa. n the study that was conducted by us, we found out that nearly 22%
of the respondents thinks that policy term offered by the company is the
most important thing that one should consider before taking any life
policy term
policy term
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
20
10
0
poIicy term
17 17.0 22.4 22.4
9 9.0 11.8 34.2
8 8.0 10.5 44.7
17 17.0 22.4 67.1
14 14.0 18.4 85.5
5 5.0 6.6 92.1
2 2.0 2.6 94.7
4 4.0 5.3 100.0
76 76.0 100.0
24 24.0
100 100.0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Total
Valid
System Missing
Total
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
insurance policy while 5.3% of the respondents think that it is the least
important thing that one should consider before taking any life insurance
policy.
RIDER BENEFITS:



Rider benefits are the additional benefits that the insurer company provides
to its customers for attracting them. Things like accidental benefit, critical
illness benefit, and permanent disablement benefit are provided as arider
with the original policy with a payment of some additional premium from the
point of view of the customers. According to the study nearly 18% of the
rider benefits
14 14.0 18.2 18.2
5 5.0 6.5 24.7
13 13.0 16.9 41.6
12 12.0 15.6 57.1
15 15.0 19.5 76.6
12 12.0 15.6 92.2
3 3.0 3.9 96.1
3 3.0 3.9 100.0
77 77.0 100.0
23 23.0
100 100.0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Total
Valid
System Missing
Total
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
rider benefits
rider benefits
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
respondents think that it is the most important criteria before selecting an
insurance policy, while on the other hand 4% of the respondent feels it is
the least important criteria.
BONUS AND INTEREST PAID:


Bonus and interest are paid by the companies to the policy holder for the
policies which are with profit policy. .e. if a person takes a with profit policy,
he/she also becomes liable to get a certain percentage of the profit that the
company makes in a certain financial year. 39% of the respondent
BONUS
30 30.0 39.0 39.0
5 5.0 6.5 45.5
7 7.0 9.1 54.5
11 11.0 14.3 68.8
9 9.0 11.7 80.5
13 13.0 16.9 97.4
1 1.0 1.3 98.7
1 1.0 1.3 100.0
77 77.0 100.0
23 23.0
100 100.0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Total
Valid
System Missing
Total
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
BONUS
BONUS
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
40
30
20
10
0
considers it as the most important criteria before taking a life insurance
policy.
SERVICES (PRE AND POST SALES):


While conducting the study we have met many respondents who things that
many of the companies provide them satisfactory services only till the
policy is being taken by the respondent, but after that if there is any
requirement from the point of view of the customer, the company does not
pay the same attention to them as they had paid earlier. So, nearly 25% of
the respondents feel that services (both pre and post sales) provided by the
SERVICES
19 19.0 24.7 24.7
4 4.0 5.2 29.9
10 10.0 13.0 42.9
6 6.0 7.8 50.6
15 15.0 19.5 70.1
12 12.0 15.6 85.7
5 5.0 6.5 92.2
6 6.0 7.8 100.0
77 77.0 100.0
23 23.0
100 100.0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Total
Valid
System Missing
Total
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
SERVCES
SERVCES
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
20
10
0
company is the most important thing to consider before undertaking any
kind of life insurance policy.

ACCESSIBILITY:


The term accessibility here refers to the easy availability of the facilities that
the company provides to its customer's. The facilities can be regarding
information about the company and the various products offered by them,
which can be made available through internet. According to the study
nearly 12% of the respondent's thing it is the most important thing, while
accessibiIity
9 9.0 11.7 11.7
6 6.0 7.8 19.5
10 10.0 13.0 32.5
8 8.0 10.4 42.9
13 13.0 16.9 59.7
17 17.0 22.1 81.8
7 7.0 9.1 90.9
7 7.0 9.1 100.0
77 77.0 100.0
23 23.0
100 100.0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Total
Valid
System Missing
Total
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
accessibility
accessibility
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
20
10
0
9% of them feel that it is the least important thing that one may consider
before taking any life insurance policy.
COMPANY IMAGE:


Company image also plays an very important role in influencing the
decision of a prospective customer while taking the final decision. From the
study it has been found out that nearly 33% of the people feel that it is the
most important thing that influences ones decision regarding taking of life
insurance policy, while for 9% of people it does not provide any significant
importance in their decision making.
company image
25 25.0 32.5 32.5
10 10.0 13.0 45.5
5 5.0 6.5 51.9
9 9.0 11.7 63.6
2 2.0 2.6 66.2
9 9.0 11.7 77.9
10 10.0 13.0 90.9
7 7.0 9.1 100.0
77 77.0 100.0
23 23.0
100 100.0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Total
Valid
System Missing
Total
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
company image
company image
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
30
20
10
0

So, to conclude from the above representations, it can be said that the
premium that the policy holder has to pay for taking any life insurance
policy, plays the most important role in influencing their decision,
followed by the factors like bonus and interest paid by the company,
company image and so on. So, those companies who are charging the
least premium as well as providing all other complementary services,
has a better chance of succeeding in the life insurance sector in
comparison to other companies who are also operating in the same
field.

Now to further analyze the perception of the respondents about what
they think as the important criteria before taking an insurance policy.
have taken two independent parameters, namely:
a) Age of the People.
b) Annual ncome of the People.

After taking these two independent parameters, the analysis is being made
to see which age group people think what criteria is important or what is
difference in perception among the people who have annual income which
are significantly different from each other. The number of respondents here
is taken as 77 (76 in case of annual income, as one of the respondents did
not disclose his income) only as those people who are not having any life
insurance policy have been excluded from the purview of the study..