A STUDY ON CUSTOMER AWARENESS ABOUT ICICI LOMBARD
Posted on 21. Mar, 2010 by admin in general
Introduction
The first Indian insurance company, the Bombay Mutual Life Assurance Society started its operations in1871. In 1956 the Indian life insurance industry was made up of 154 domestic life insurers, 16 foreign life insurers and 75 provident funds, and was still governed by the Insurance Act of 1938.In 1956 all life insurance companies were nationalized, In1907, the first Indian general insurer, the Indian Mercantile Insurance Company started its operations. The New India Assurance Company Ltd. was incorporated in1919. In 1972, the non-life insurance business in the country was nationalized and the GIC (General Insurance Corporation of India) was formed as a holding company with four subsidiaries: The National Insurance, Oriental Insurance, United India Insurance and the New India Assurance Company Ltd. Since then, insurance in India had a protective wall built around it, to keep it local players Market.
ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company
ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited is a 74:26 joint venture between ICICI Bank Limited and the US-based $ 26 billion Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited. ICICI Bank is India’s second largest bank; while Fairfax Financial Holdings is a diversified financial corporate engaged in general insurance, reinsurance, insurance claims management and investment management. Lombard Canada Ltd., a group company of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, is one of Canada’s oldest property and casualty insurers. ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company received regulatory approvals to commence general insurance business in August 2001.
Special features of ICICI Lombard
SHAREHOLDERS
Fairfax
Fairfax Financial Holding Limited is a financial services holding company whose corporate objective is to achieve a high rate of return on invested capital and build long-term shareholder value. It provides services in the area of financial services, general insurance, reinsurance, insurance claims management and investment management. Fairfax Group is amongst the largest shareholder of ICICI Bank with about 4.5% shareholding.
ICICI Bank
v Second largest bank in India with asset size of over US $ 24 billion
v A network of 540 branches /offices and over 1,700 ATMs
v Presence across all financial products
v Only FI in India to pierce sovereign rating
v Listed at the NYSE, around 72% of the company’s equity is held by foreign investors
v Technology-enabled products and processes
Group companies
Domestic subsidiaries
ü ICICI Securities Limited
ü ICICI Venture Funds Management Company Limited
ü ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited
ü ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited
ü ICICI Home Finance Company Limited
ü ICICI Investment Management Company Limited
ü ICICI Trusteeship Services Limited
ü ICICI Brokerage Services Limited *
ü ICICI Distribution Finance Private Limited
International subsidiaries
*Subsidiary of ICICI Securities Limited ** Subsidiary of ICICI Securities Holdings Inc
Product Profile
Product innovation is key to business growth. ICICI Lombard believes in challenging existing product assumptions and targeting new product-market segments. This has helped the company in customer acquisition and retention as well as in increasing category penetration. The company has launched a slew of products and has emerged as a major player in the corporate and retail segment driven by a well-balanced portfolio.
Staying ahead in product innovation through:-
Customer Service
Insurance is a service-specific industry. Customer service is the key area of focus for ICICI Lombard. The Company has built high levels of customer loyalty and advocacy in relatively short period of time.
Staying ahead in customer service through:-
IT & Infrastructure
ICICI Lombard has effectively used Information Technology to meet growing customer needs while improving operational efficiency and profitability. The Company’s IT strategy, architecture and successful deployment form the backbone of its business.
Staying ahead in IT infrastructure through:-
Partnerships
Effective partnerships and alliances form an integral part of the company’s strategy. ICICI Lombard believes that a leveraged distribution model via partnerships and alliances will be a key driver of its growth in future. Partnership driven alliances model allows the company to cash-in on the partner’s customer network so that the customer gets a packaged offering of products.
Staying ahead in partnership through:
Distribution Reach
ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company’s endeavour is to become India’s preferred provider of the entire array of financial products and services. The company has built a robust franchise network in association with its joint venture partners to expand coverage. The company presently has 56 offices across India manned by over 700 employees. It believes in targeting customers through multi-channel route including direct sales, agents, brokers, bancassurance, alternate channels and the Internet. Thus, the customers have number of channels to choose from.
Human Resource
ICICI Lombard believes in a progressive human resource philosophy that turns human capital into a key source of competitive advantage. The capability and motivation level of employees is a key determinant in success of any service-oriented organization. Our employee strength is over 600. We have people from diverse backgrounds including general insurance, banking, financial services, consumer goods, telecom, automotive engineering etc.
THE PRESENT STUDY
Aim of the study (Objectives)
v To study the awareness of ICICI LOMBARD.
v To measure the satisfaction level among the customers with the current insurance providers.
Scope of the Study
METHOD
Research Design
A research design is purely and simply framework or a plan for study that guides is collection of data. Descriptive research design is adopted for analysing the data.
Sampling Design
Population under study
Customers in and around Erode City are the targeted respondents for the study details about these customers are collected from merchant association
Sample size
Once the population is determined the sample size has to be fixed. Fifty sample respondents are taken based on simple random sampling method. The various variables like awareness, usage level & satisfaction of respondent are gathered to be studied.
Sampling Frame
The frame refers to the customers who have been selected for the study.
Sampling Technique
A convenient sampling was followed to have sufficient discretion in selecting the sample.
Data Collection Method
Data collection is the most impeccant aspects in the research methodology. The data was collected based on interview technique and personally handed out structured questionnaire questions were resented is exactly the same words is the same order to all the respondents.
The questionnaire was conceived in such a way that the questions as well as the answers were standardized. This is accomplished by employing fixed alternative. Such a questionnaire facilitates easy administration & tabulation and analysis closed ended questionnaire was used in the study.
Feature of Questionnaire
The questionnaire was designed in order to check those features.
v Awareness About various insurance providers
v Their satisfaction level with current insurance provider
v What are the factors they are considering while taking an insurance policy
Statistical Tools Used
In the study simple percentage analysis, weighted average and Two-way classification tables are used to interpret the data collected.
Results and Discussion
From the analysis that most (35.6%) of the customers are belongs to 1-3 lakhs income group.
Maximum (92.8%) of the customers are only purchase the general insurance policy.
From our study, maximum (19.4%) of the customers have purchased New India Assurance policies.
Most (39.2%) of the customers have purchased Motor insurance policy than others.
Protection is the motivational factor behind the insurance policy of the most (56%) of the customers.
It is analysed from the study that maximum (52.6%) of the customers have purchased the insurance through agents.
It is found from the analysis that most (47.8%) of the customers felt that the service of the insurer was excellent.
Most (46.8%) of the customers are aware the ICICI insurance than other private sector insurance.
It is found that majority (49.6%) of the customers are aware of the insurance sector by the media of hoardings.
Most of the customers are select the particular company policy for the reason of its service.
Majority (81.2%) of the customers are not switchover to private sector for the reason of its high premium amount where as few of the respondents’ only want to switchover for their good service.
½ of the customers have applied for the claim during the last three years.
Mostly all of customers (94.3%) opined that they faced some problem while doing the claim process.
It is found from the analysis that most of the customers have taken all the policies through company executives.
It is highlighted from the analysis that majority of the respondents have taken shop keeper policy and opined that the service is excellent.
Since most of the customers are not aware of the ICICI Insurance sector, the company should concentrate to increase the awareness through major promotional tool like television and print media.
From the analysis we found that majority of the customers have insured through Government based Motor Vehicle insurance like national insurance, oriental insurance, etc. but they hesitate to enter into the new insurance company because it is a private sector. So, ICICI Lombard should concentrate the type of problems.
Since the majority of the respondents are aware that the ICICI Insurance through the company agents / officers and it is found that they are the ‘main awareness tool’ of the company, the company should concentrate to promote more agents / officers.
Conclusion
ICICI Lombard the No.1 player among the private insurers holds around 18% of the Erode city Market share. From the study it was found that more than 46% of the Erode market is aware of the service provided by ICICI Lombard. This large variation between market share and awareness is due to the reason that the customers feel that the premium of this private insurance company’s are very high as compared to public companies.
REFERENCE
Website: www.icicilombard.com
Research methodology by C.R.Kothari
Business Today
Industrial Economist
The Hindu Business Line