LIFE INSURANCE -PRODUCT MIX (GENERIC)

 As long as the life insurance business in India remained  a mono poly of LIC the product were internally designed  and launched   by LIC. To enable the Corporation to release commission  to the agents according to the provides of the life insurance Corporation  of India agents  Regulations 1972, a formal notifications  was issued  in the Gazette  of the Government  of India.  With the formation of the insurance regulatory  and development authority , all the companies  a re required to file with the authority a proposal containing the product  profile along with  all the  relevant documents  thirty days before  the launch of a products . The product can be launched by the  after the IRDA  clears   it as a  suitable one for the Indian cousumers.   In the consumer market segment  product or goods are divided  into two  major  groups  namely Branded  products and Generic  products . 


Branded  products  carry the brand  name, whereas  the unbranded  versions of common products like unbrand  apparel shoes, , soaps, washing powders, etc.,  Are called the  Generic products.   Until the middle of the 1980’s in India, life insurance  plans did not bear by  any brand name: they were marketed  as generic products as a  whole Life Assurance  or /Endowment Assurance etc.,  Under the respective  table numbers. The concept of products branding  took from  root in LIC during the 1980’s. All life insurance plans that are marketed  under different brand names  are combinations  of generic product like the Term Assurance  , Whole life and Endowment  type of the plans , including  immediate  and Deferred Annuities.  



  Until the advent of the private  sector insurance companies  majority  of the product  on offer in the Indian  market were pure vanillas  providing for risk cover and savings. The private sector players  have Changed market the rules  of the game. Now the insurance  market was a  has a  plethora of hybrid  insurance products judiciously  and dexterously  mixed to the meet the various new and changing needs to the customers. LIC that was a  vendor  of vanilla  insurance products has also changed  its traditional  out look and is launching  many customer centric products.  For example  Jeevan Rekha of LIC is a whole Life plan that combines  the features  of a Money Back Plan, Birla  Sun Life’s Flexi Life Plan is a unit linked  whole life plan offering benefits like investments  options top up options by way of additional  investments  annual guaranteed  additions and further loan and surrender facility, etc.



Maha Life of Tata -AIG  is a whole life plan that provides  for guaranteed  additions and further tops the additions if the Company’s  bottom line becomes  healthier . Similarly the flexi protection  whole life plan Lige Long of AVIVA is a linked whole life plan that offers  an option to increase  the sum assured subject to conditions.  Shubh life endowment plan by the Tata AIG, apart from offering  guaranteed  additions to the plans at certain percentage  also offers  a number  of options  to the policy holder  . Nirbhay of Tata-AIG is a plan that combines  the advantage  of a limited  premium endowment and attractive features  of money back plan. Sudarshan the endowment  plan of SBI Life offers  two options. The  fixed  Sum assured  plan maintains the predetermined  as the cover for the term , whereas under the increasing  sum assured  plan that the life cover increases  every year.