Abstract:
Insurance, which is called unsought product in marketing, is defined as a
co-operative device to spread the loss caused by a particular risk and life insurance is
explained as the contract, whereby the insurer in consideration of a premium
undertakes to pay a certain sum of money either on the death of the insured or on the
expiry of a fixed period. On the other hand, marketing is managing profitable
relationship with customers. The present paper has attempted to critically describe
the marketing of insurance in Bangladesh. For this study 110 respondents have been
interviewed which includes 10 insurers, 65 policy-holders, and 35 non-
policyholders. As a marketing offer, insurance consists of a number of product levels
which may include risk coverage against a particular financial loss, marketing
activities of formulating the insurance contract and designing the insurance policy,
the settlement of the claim if the loss occurred, fulfilling the investment need of the
customer as it provides a certain benefit against the insured amount of the
policyholder, providing various financial facilities to the customers such as getting
tax exemption, acting as a guarantor and so on. It is seen that marketing channel of
insurance marketing consists of direct and indirect channels. The study depicts that
insurance companies are not marketing oriented and they are also void of marketing
research. The study shows the mentionable problems of insurance marketing in
Bangladesh such as low per capita income, poor knowledge of agents, illiteracy of
prospects (target customers), religious superstition, low awareness of prospects, low
savings of target market, lack of continuity, lack of reminder, negligence of policy
holders, poor services to policy holders, low return to the consumers, and lack of
reliability and so on. To overcome the setback and improve the performance of
insurance marketing, some measures can be taken e. g. more training to sales force,
building awareness of prospects, diversified policies, more marketing research for
improved strategies, improving commitment of sales force, new legislation, improve
professional ethics, quick settlement of claims, expansion of coverage and so on.
