Well there are (were?) many ways of selling life insurance. The more important ones are agency, bancassurance, brokers, and of course the great Multi Level Marketing.

The agency model is the toughest to build and even those companies which claim to have a big agency models are seeing the productivity go down. It is much easier to recruit a lot of employees in the bank and give them targets. As the number of clients increase, the banks are in a greater position to sell more life insurance policies..

However companies which said they will have only a bancassurance model have built an agency channel….and those with an agency channel focus are also throwing money at banks for selling their products…

I do not know which works well – agents or bancassurance. Agents have different ways of working, banca works differently. Frankly on an average the bank sales guy is far superior, but averages mean nothing in a business where some agents are brilliant, make a lot of money, wear an Armani, travel in the front seats of a plane and in the back seat of a car. Of course there are agents who cannot make two ends meet also…The word ‘average agent’ is a misnomer. I know ‘agents’ who earn in 8 digits as well as those who find it difficult to reach 6 digits!!

Products have become simpler…easy to sell…and thus bancassurance is a easy model…er…er…wait a minute..here there is a different view..:-)

http://www.businessstandard.com/india/news/life-insurers-turn-to-agents/430149/