Life Insurance: Agents or Bancassurance?
No this is not an article of whether you should buy life insurance from a bank or from an agent…it is just leading to an article on MoneyLife.
Agents tell me ‘we cannot sell a wrong product to the customer, because we have to go to the same guy again and again, but bank managers can sell a wrong product’
Counter by Bank RM: We cannot incentivise a customer the way an agent can, so we lose out.
Agent: We know nothing about the client except what the client tells us, but the bank RM knows all the transactions.
Bank: RBI has lot of restrictions on whether we can see the client’s account.
Agent: rofl.
Bank rm: We work hard and make 10 calls a day…..
Agent: some of us make 20 calls a day. There is nothing called an average agent.
Funnily no one model has worked. SBI for example has used the bank branch model, Max New York Life started with the agents model.
Now insurance companies which had only the agents model are aggressively moving towards bancassurance model and the insurance companies which had the banking model are moving towards the agency model! There does not seem to be the ‘one right model’. Is there mis-selling? Is there rebating? It is a yes to both.
Are both channels doing ‘wrong’ things. Well legally no – but we all know how life works, do we not?
If Gandhiji had a 4th monkey….it would be covering…you know what!! The only protection you have is financial education. The best ploy which can work is to tell the agent or bank relationship manager ‘My son (depending on the age of the customer this can be son, brother, sister, mother -in-law, classmate….) is Sr. Vice-President (Compliance and Legal) Goldman Sachs, Singapore. I will ask him /her and foward your mail to him/her and let that person decide whether it is a good product’. Good enough to put off the thief (only problem is if he does not know he is selling a lemon!).
Or ‘If you sell me a lemon, believe me I have the energy, money, patience to squeeze the lemon in your eye’ ….have fun guys…also read this
Arun Bandi
With all the investers coming in with tall promises of at least 35% gain in equity markets and least promising national banks sparing just between 6 to 7 %,we the ordinary invester need our each one lakh rupees investment returns (R O I )as follows.No compromise whatsoever.He just needs only 18% interst as his (R O I )
The total locking period for a mandatory minimum investment of one lakh is for 10 years!
1. 6% interest calculated at the end of every year be deposited in invester’s saving account on every quarter(3Manths).This will take care of every ones smallest needs of survival
2. An amount of 2 % every annum may be taken by investment management company,the amount is realized by the invester companies after the above 6% is deposited to invester account.
3. The remaining amount of 10% then be deposited in a life insurance policy for every invester compulsorily( by this way huge funds can be utilized by govt and all the flow of money can be in the insurance policies)
Brain Storming and Debate on this scheme is required by experts and investment consultants so that utilizing insurance money for National projects could be reality in future!!!
Viability,feasibility and profitability of this proposal is open for public discussion
ARUN BANDI
Krish
These are real life incidents. Only few lockers are available with the bank. The bank RM calls customers who previously enquired about lockers. His condition to offer the locker is to sign in one of the ULIP which huge annual premium. Yes, few of the customers opted to take the ULIPs for the locker.
A customer came to the bank with nearly half kilo of gold to seek loan because interest rates charged are lower than gold finance companies. Again same condition. Pushed to take insurance prior sanctioning the loan.
These are not just isolated. Most of the loan seekers are foced to buy insurance. What should the customers do. You know that the branch is close to your home and is convenient for you for many reasons and that keeping the rapo with RM/BM is important. Changing the bank is not always easy. People left with no choice are yeilding. I really hate to see banking is forgotten and that entire staff of branch acts like insurance agent office.