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.