Page 13 - Life Insurance Today December 2017

therefore, Government of India has started many schemes Life-Plus offices, increase in women employees,
and programmes. Among them, low-priced micro bancassurance and alternate channels, corporate
insurance policies are now assumed as a vital financial communication and international joint venture.
instrument to strengthening the economic condition of
such people. On the other hand, to see enormous Bengal Chamber of Commerce and KPMG (2013) address
opportunities many life insurance companies have entered the present context of insurance in regard to dynamics of
rural market with several life micro insurance policies. external environment which changed the whole industry.
Profitability, growth and risks are to be considered
As a matter of fact, life micro insurance policy provides pertaining to shareholders view.
different kinds of financial guarantee to policyholders. In
spite of having all the ingredients, rural life insurance Singh and Lall (2011) in their paper on "An Empirical Study
market has not achieved the success what our economists of Life Insurance Products and Services in Rural Areas" lay
as well insurers expect from it. It may be possible that stress on the examination of opportunities for insurers in
micro environment prevailing in rural areas are creating rural market and what would be new strategies to tap the
barriers and fog at the mental level of both parties i.e. highly underinsured rural area. He finds that insurance
insurers and customers. The policies of life insurance companies are fulfilling many purposes of investments and
companies are still not rural centric catering to the specific savings at a time but maximum respondents buy insurance
needs of the people. policies for tax rebate and family safety. He suggests that
micro insurance product should be developed for under
Literature Review privileged people and rural areas population and products
should be designed as per their needs and income.
Barik and Patra (2014) in their paper entitled on
"Emerging Trends in Insurance- A Study in Indian Life
Sahu (2010) concentrates on current discussion and
Insurance Industry" find new trends such as hybrid
debate on micro insurance in India with focus on its
distribution channel, regulatory trend, difficulty in
outreach and efficacy and participation of the target
designing marketing mix, online policy, claim management,
groups in his paper on "Micro Insurance in India: Outreach
customer servicing and FDI and growth.
and Efficacy". He founds that existing micro insurance
products are not demand driven in both high and low
Shahi, Prarthana (2013) in her paper on "Recent Trends in
outreach areas. He further observes that there is lack of
the Marketing Strategies of LIC of India" reveals that the
contribution of LIC to total industry in terms of life understanding, awareness, extension services and
development of insurance market that grossly impact
insurance offices has dipped down from 99.41 percent in
wider use of insurance products and its uptake particularly
the year 2001 to 30.94 percent in the year 2012. She
among low income groups.
further states regarding the marketing strategies adopted
by LIC such as facilities to their existing employees,
increasing the number of individual agents, introduced Objective of the Study
The objective of the present study is to examine the
performance of LIC of India and ICICI Prudential in context
of life micro insurance policies issued under new business.

Hypothesis

H : There is no significant difference between LIC of India
0
and ICICI Prudential in terms of number of life micro
insurance policies issued under new business.

H : There is significant difference between LIC of India and
1
ICICI Prudential in terms of number of life micro insurance
policies issued under new business.

Life Insurance Today December 2017 13

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