Introduction:

Whenever there is uncertainty, there is risk .The risk can not be averted. It involves
multi-faced losses. Risk is uncertainty of a financial loss. We do not have any
command on uncertainties. This makes it essential that we think in favour of a device
that becomes instrumental in spreading the loss .It is in this context that we think
about insurance which is considered to be a social device to accumulate funds to meet
uncertain losses.
The main function of insurance is to provide protection against the possible
chances of generating losses. It eliminates worries and miseries of losses at
destruction of property and lives. Further, it provides capital to national economy
since the accumulated funds are invested in productive heads. The industries,
businesses, individuals are considerably benefited by services that are provided by
insurance organizations.
The earliest traces of insurance are in the form of marine trade losses or carriers
contracts. After the marine insurance, we find development in the field of fire
insurance. It started from Germany in the beginning of the 16th century. The life
insurance was found in existence in England in the 17th century. The policy of life of
William Gybbons on june18, 1633 is the first recorded evidence.
In India, the first life insurance company was established in the Bengal presidency in
1818, which was known as the orient life insurance company.
The public sector insurance business, of course, made possible numerous changes in
the functional areas of the insurance corporations but at the same time it also made a
way for degeneration in the quality of services.
At the outset, it was essential that the insurance corporations thought about their
services profiles. Of course, we find inclusion of a number of policies and

programmers for the welfare of the policy holder but when we make a comparative
analysis of their contributions with the foreign well-established insurance companies,
a sea change in the profiles of both can not be negated. The policy holder in a
majority of the cases feels that the agent, front-line-staff have hardly been offering to
insurance the services promised.
By conceptualizing modern marketing principles, the insurance business can be
improved, the profitability can be increased and the quality of services can be
matched to the changing exceptions of users. In addition to the world-class core
services, they would also be in a position to innovate the peripheral services adding
attractions to their service mix and making it distinct to the competitors. The
marketing experts also make an advocacy in favour of a new mix.i.e.people.we can
not negate that the foreign insurance companies have been found careful while
managing people. The agents, front-line-staff and even the executives are found
personally committed which helped them in making available to the end users the
promised services.
The public sector insurance organizations need to impart proper training marketing to
their personnel.

The objectives of research:

1. To understand various promotional mix strategies undertaken by life insurance
companies in Iran and India.
2. To investigate whether there is any association between genders and
advertising recall.

3. To find out the relationship between customers subscribing to life insurance

and the utility of life insurance products based on the brand image of the life
insurance product.

Hypothesis:
1. There is difference between perceived benefits from life insurance
products based on country of origins.
2. There is integration effort of market research and survey with flurry of
media to get more prospective customer or buyer for life insurance
companies.
3. There is an association between effort of company to develop a brand
building plan to create positive customer response and concentrate focus
on putting hard work on brand building.

The Need of Study:

1. There is a need to understand the importance of promotional mix

adopted by life insurance companies in India and Iran.
2. The companies are designing various marketing strategies with help of
promotional tools and try to create awareness for insurance products.
3. There is a need to select right mix of promotional activities to suit
customer needs from insurance companies at particular time and to use
it correctly to achieve result.
4. The insurance companies are developing and implementing brand
image and trying to stimulate their target audience to buy their
products or services.
5. Due to various measures taken by insurance sector, the customer is
largely affected. It is important to find out the extend of impact on
customer and his reaction due to such measures.
3

6. There are fluctuations in brand building plan of life insurance

companies to create customer experience s and there is need to find out
the effect of promotional strategies and to study how they help to
increase positive response of their customers.

Content of the Thesis

The presentation of study has been divided into following five chapters.

Chapter 1:
1.1-Introduction of Insurance 1.2-History of Insurance 1.3-Insurance
Definition 1.4- Insurance versus Assurance 1.5-Need of Insurance 1.6Principle Of Insurance 1.7-Benefit Of Insurance 1.8- Type Of Insurance
1.9-Life Insurance Principles 1.10-Life Insurance Product 1.11-Service In
Modern Economy 1.12-Defination Of Service 1.13-Marketing Service
Versus Physical Goods 1.14- The Objectives And Hypothesis 1.15Scope of study 1.16-Defination of research 1.17- Research Methodology
1.18-Type of Research 1.19- Collection the Data 1.20-Determing the
sample size 1.21-Analysis of Data 1.22- Hypothesis Testing
Chapter 2:
2.1-Breift Introduction To Insurance Industry 2.2-Insurance Industry In
India2.3Iimpact Of Liberalization 2.4-Current Scenario Of Life Insurance
Industry 2.5-Insurance In Ancient In Iran 2.6- Insurance Market In Iran

2.7-Defination Of Marketing 2.8- Marketing Mix 2.9- Element Of

Promotional Mix 2.10- Explanation Of Each Promotional Mix

Chapter 3:
3.1- The Promotional Mix in Insurance Industry
3.2-Current Promotional Strategies in Life Insurance Companies in India
3.3- Current Promotional Strategies in Life Insurance Companies in Iran
Chapter 4:
4.1- Data Analysis and Interpretation

Chapter 5:
5-1: Finding,
5.2: Recommendation
5.3: Future Research Opportunities
Annexure:
1. Questionair for insurance companies
2. Questionnair for life insurance product
3. Bibliography and Reference

Research Methodology:
Quantitative Research: it generates statistics through the use of large scale survey
research, using methods such a questioners or structured interview.
Researcher selected the quantitative research methodology to purse his research.

Type of research:
Descriptive research is used to establish accurate descriptions of variables relevant to
the decision being taken without demonstrating the existence of relationship between
variables.
The purpose of this design is to give an accurate picture of some aspect of the
marketing environment, in other words, descriptive designs describe phenomena
without establishing the association amongst the various factors.
Though it is frequently used for conclusive, preliminary and exploratory studies,
hypothesis will be tentative and speculative.

Collecting of data:
Researcher classified information source into primary and secondary data.
Primary data is collected by researcher with the help of executing the questionnaires.
As mentioned the objective of this research based on to prove or disprove the effect of
promotional strategies in life insurance which is considered as one of the fast growing
sectors in India and Iran. Researcher thought it proper to get primary data from life
insurance companies as well as consumer of life insurance. Researcher collected the
primary data by executing the questionnaires.
The researcher and the respondents (insurance companies and insurance consumer) do
come in contact with each other if this method of survey is adopted. Therefore
researcher decided to use the questionnaire as best tools for collecting primary data
from life insurance companies and respondents in Iran and India Researcher designed
the various types of question to get more accurate response and information based on
the facts from
6

Both the parties. The researcher took a help of various types of questions such as:

Open-ended questions

Dichotomous question s

Multiple-choice questions

Scaled questions

After designing the two sets of questionnaires for consumer and Life Insurance
Company, researcher decided to conduct the pilot testing of questionnaires.
Researcher carried out the pilot testing study to see whether the questionnaires can
obtain the results which researcher required to meet his objectives and hypothesis.
Researcher performed several methods to conduct pilot testing:
Researcher requested the professional executives in the field of life insurance
and professor to review the questionnaires and if there is any ambiguities
which researcher hasnt noticed.
Researcher circulated a 30 number of questionnaires to the various types of
consumers and also circulated a 5 number of questionnaires to life insurance
companies who will be taking part in the main survey.
Since the researcher has found the relevant data, it was not necessary to pilot the
questionnaires again.
Secondary data was collected with the help of sources mentioned as following:
The secondary data from other free flow information sources like, insurance
consultant and Sales managers in insurance field/besides a large number of books,
magazines, articles, newspapers and other periodicals/etc.
The secondary data could be obtained internally, within the life insurance companies
or externally outside the life insurance companies
Internal sources were classified under four broad categories

Accounting records
Insurance Sales forces reports

insurance agents

Insurance Internal experts

The external secondary data is not generated by the life insurance companies hence it
is obtained from outside sources, mentioned below:

Various books which are more emphasized on marketing ,promotional

strategies ,advertising, service marketing

Journals and magazines related to the topic

National Insurance Academy

Supportive publication center like ICFAI

Various websites

Government publications, etc

Sample design:
Since the promotional strategies would be the same in all cities in India and Iran. The
sample was chosen from the customers and life insurance companies who expressed
an interest in participating .it is an appropriate approach to get a list of potential
respondents who participated Therefore researcher decided to take help of deliberate
sampling (non probability convenience sampling) The following ten life insurance
companies in India have responded to the questionnaire.
S .No
1
2
3
4
5
6

Name of Life insurance Company

Aviva Life insurance
OM Kotak Life insurance Co.LTD
Birila Sun Life Insurance company
ICICI Prudential Life insurance
HDFC Standard Life Insurance
ING Vysya Life insurance

7
8
9
10

LIFE insurance Corporation(LIC)

Allianz Bajaj Life insurance
MAX New York Life insurance
Tata-AIG Life insurance

Despite persistent effort, constant reminder, off and on interaction, four life insurance
companies in India did not respond to the questionnaire.
The researcher had made every effort to drive them the message, that the outcome of
study would be shared with the respondents, however the four insurance companies
did not respond .hence they could not be included in this survey.
The following life insurance companies in India did not respond to the questionnaire:
MetLife India insurance
Reliance life insurance
SBI life insurance
Shriam Life insurance

There were only ten Life insurance companies in Iran, therefore researcher selected all
of them to conduct the survey and they also have given the accurate responds to the
questionnaire.
The list of ten life Insurance companies visited by researcher is given below:
S NO

Name of Life insurance Company

Bimeh Markazi Iran

Asia life insurance

Dana life insurance

Alborz life insurance

Karafarin insurance

Parsian life insurance

Saman insurance company

Pasargurd insurance company

Omid insurance company

10

Mellat insurance company

SAMPLE SIZE:
Researcher decided to distribute the 400 questionnaires for consumer of

life

insurance companies in India and Iran to achieve objective of research. Therefore

researcher has collected 200 questionnaires from consumer of life insurance in India
and 200 from Iran. Researcher distributed one questionnaire for each life insurance
company to obtain its response (in Iran and India). The total number of questionnaires
received from insurance companies in both the counties in India and Iran was 20.
Questionnaire

Iran

India

Consumer of life insurance

200=(20*10)

200=(20*10)

Life insurance company

10=(1*10)

10=(1*10)

Total

210

210

To summarize:
Two types of questionnaires:
Sample Size: 400 for consumer respondents (200 from India, 200 from Iran).
Sample Size:20 for life insurance companies (10 from india,10 from Iran)

Data Analysis and Interpretation:

Objective 1:
To understand various promotional mix strategies undertaken by life insurance
companies in Iran and India
Researcher extracted the following results after applying SPSS software.
Researcher discovered the different frequencies for each element of promotional mix
strategies adopted by life insurance companies in country of origins (Iran and Iran).

10

The summary of frequencies for ten life insurance companies in India is given below:
Promotional mix strategies adopted by life
insurance companies in India
Advertising in electronic and print media
Advertising campaign
PR and Publicity
Personal selling
Sales promotion
Direct marketing
Telemarketing
Word of Mouth
Combination of all strategies

Highest
score
5
5
8
5
9
8
5
9
5

Rank
5
4,5
5
4,5
5
4
4,5
5
4,5

percentage
50%
50%
80%
50%
90%
80%
50%
90%
50%

Promotional Mix Strategies in Life Insurance Companies in India

10
Advertising in electronic and print
media

Advertising campaign

Highest Score

8
7

PR and Publicity

Personal selling

Sales promotion

4
Direct marketing

3
2

Telemarketing

Word of Mouth

Promotional Strategies

11

Percentage of each promotional Strategies in life insurance companies in india

8%

Advertising in electronic and print

media

8%

Advertising campaign
8%
PR and Publicity

16%

Personal selling
14%
8%

Sales promotion
Direct marketing
Telemarketing

8%
Word of Mouth

14%
16%

Combination of all strategies

Researcher noticed that ten life insurance companies in India have given the highest
score to following promotional strategies undertaken by them:
Sales promotion
Word of mouth
Public Relations and Publicity
Direct Marketing
As best promotional mix strategies adopted by life insurance companies in India.
Researcher also discovered that the above promotional strategies captured the
following percentage as follows:

Promotional Strategies in India

percentage

Sales promotion

16%

Word of mouth

16 %

PR and Publicity

14%

Direct Marketing

14 %

12

The summary of frequencies for ten life insurance companies in Iran is shown as
below:
Promotional mix strategies adopted by life
insurance companies in IRAN
Advertising in electronic and print media
Advertising campaign
PR and Publicity
Personal selling
Sales promotion
Direct marketing
Telemarketing
Word of Mouth
Combination of all strategies

Highest
score
6
6
7
5
7
4
6
5
6

Rank
4
4
4
4
4
4,5
4
5
4

percentage
60%
60%
70%
50%
70%
40%
60%
50%
60%

Promotional Mix Strategies in Life Insurance Companies in Iran

8

Advertising in electronic and print

media

Advertising campaign

Highest Score

PR and Publicity

Personal selling

4
Sales promotion
3
Direct marketing
2
Telemarketing
1
Word of Mouth
0
1

Combination of all strategies

Promotional Strategies

13

Percentage of Each poromtional Startegies in life insurance companies in Iran

12%

12%
Advertising in electronic and print media

10%

Advertising campaign

12%

PR and Publicity
Personal selling
Sales promotion

12%

Direct marketing

12%

Telemarketing
Word of Mouth

8%

Combination of all strategies

10%
12%

Researcher noticed that ten life insurance companies in Iran have given the highest
score to the following promotional strategies undertaken by them:
Public Relations and Publicity
Sales promotion
Advertising in electronic and print media
Advertising Campaign
Telemarketing
As best promotional mix strategies adopted by life insurance companies in Iran.
Researcher also discovered that above promotional strategies captured the following
percentage as follows:

Promotional Strategies in Iran

percentage

PR and publicity

12%

Sales promotion

12%

Advertising in electronic and print 12%

media
Advertising Campaign

12%

Telemarketing

12%

Inference:

14

Researcher discovered that there are similarities and differences between promotional
mix strategies in India and Iran. Both countries have emphasized on Public Relations
and Publicity, Sales Promotion as promotional tools to induce consumers. Researcher
noticed the life insurance companies in India also took into consideration the word of
mouth, direct marketing where as the life insurance companies in Iran have
emphasized more on Telemarketing, Advertising in electronic and print media and,
advertising campaign as additional promotional mix strategies.

Objective 2:
To investigate whether there is any association between genders and advertising
recall

Test statistic:
As the variables of interest, that is gender and the advertisement recall where
categorical variables Chi square test was applied.

Observation:

15

The test is significant with chi square value of 26.252 and P value .001 at 5 % level of
significance.

Conclusions:
There is an association between the gender of the respondent and advertisement
recall.

Inference:
The message in advertisement must be more gender specific as there is relationship
between gender and the advertisement.

Objective 3:
To find out the relationship between customers subscribing to life insurance
and the utility of life insurance product based on the brand image of the life
insurance product.

The Researcher after analyzing the data came to know that the brand image of Life
Insurance Company has an association with protection for the family as well as
pension provision.

Test Statistic:
As variable of interest, that is brand image of the life insurance company and the
protection for family where categorical variables chi square test was applied.
As variable of interest, that is brand image of the life insurance company and the
pension provision where categorical variables chi square test was applied.

16

Observations:
Protection for family:
The test is significant with chi square value of 40.750 and p value .024 at 5 % level of
significance.
Pension provision:
The test is significant with chi square value of 42.271 and p value .023 at 5 % level of
significance.

Conclusions:
There is an association between brand image of the company, protection for the
family of the insured his/her pension provision.

Interpretations:
The insurance companies should concentrate more on creating brand image of
company by emphasizing more on protection for the family of the insured.
The brand image of Life Insurance Company has important value from the view point
of to the customer of life insurance product; hence ,while delivering message to the
target audience the life insurance companies should pay the most attention to its
special feature of pension provision.

Hypothesis:
Hypo 1: There is difference between perceived benefits from life
insurance products based on country of origins.

17

Analyzing respondents from India:

There is relationship between subscriber to life insurance and the rank assign to
protection for family, long term saving, tax saving, risk coverage and pension
provision in countries of origins.
The respondents from Iran also concentrated to rank assign risk coverage and pension
provision.

Explanation:
There is difference between the rankings given by the respondents based on the
citizenship countries.

Observation:
The test is significant with chi square value 17.832 and p value .058 at 5 % level of
significance for subscriber of life insurance with protection for the family in India.
The second observation test is significant with chi square value 17.25 and p value
.028 at 5 % level of significance for subscriber of life insurance with long term saving
for the respondents from India.

Researcher came to know that the third observation test is also significant with chi
square test 20.831 and p value of .022 at 5 % level of significance for the subscribing
to life insurance and tax saving for respondents from India.

Test Statistic:

18

Since the variables of interest, that is subscribing of life insurance with protection for
the family and long term saving and tax saving where categorical variables chi square
test was applied for respondents from India.

Interpretation for Respondents in India:

There is association between subscriber of life insurance with protection for the
family, long term saving and tax saving.
The promotional strategies should be concentrated more on these three aspects which
mare vital importance for the respondent s from India.
The advertising manager of life insurance companies in India should take into
consideration these three aspects which induce consumer to buy or try the life
insurance product on the high priority when they are going to deliver the message on
the media.
The result of message has proved to be more fruitful on these three objectives more
than the other aspects, because the customers of India buy the life insurance products
to protect them from these three threats.

Analyzing respondents from Iran:

Explanation:
There is difference between the rankings given by the respondents based on the
citizenship countries.

19

Test Statistic:
Since the variables of interest, that is subscribing of life insurance with protection for
the family and long term saving and tax saving, risk coverage, pension provision
where categorical variables chi square test was applied for respondents from Iran

Observations:
The tests are significant with chi square value and p value at 5 % level of significance.
Look at the following tables:

Consumer interest from life insurance Chi square test value

company
Risk coverage
19.978
Family protection
24.144
Long term saving
22.173
Tax saving
19.511
Pension provision
18.056

Interpretation for the respondents from Iran:

There is association between life insurance subscribers of the respondents from Iran
and risk coverage, family protection, long term saving, tax saving and pension
provision. The marketing managers in insurance companies must more concentrate on
these five aspects, if they want to capture more prospective customers and increase
the market share. The message which is emanating from advertisements must be

20

emphasized on these objectives. In fact it is really difficult to cover all theses aspects
in one advertisement.
They should develop multiple advertisements to obtain the desired frequency and
coverage from the advertisements

Hypo 2: There is integration effort of market research and survey with

flurry of media to get more prospective customer or buyer for life
insurance companies.

Test statistic:
As the variable of interest, that is market research and flurry of media where
categorical variables chi square test was applied.

Observation:
The test is significant with chi square value of 6.111 and p value of .047 at 5 % level
of significance.

Conclusion:
There is an association between the market research and survey with flurry of media.
Interpretations:
The insurance companies in both countries (India and Iran) must more emphasize on
market research as one of the major tools to give them clue about the combination of
media which is best among the consumer to induce prospective customer to buy or
strength the brand loyalty among them
Hypo3: There is an association between effort of company to develop a
brand building plan to create positive customer response and
concentrate focus on putting hard work on brand building.

21

Test statistic:
Since the variable of interest, that is effort of the company to develop brand building
and positive customer response towards it where categorical variables chi square test
was applied.

Observation:
The test is significant with chi square value of 6.667 and p value of .036 at 5 % level
of significance

Conclusion:
There is an association between the effort of the company to develop brand building
and positive customer response.

Interpretation:
The brand image of the company have direct effect on the mind of consumer or
prospective consumer whether to buy the life insurance product o not ,therefore
insurance companies should have strong plan to create strong brand building through
various promotional tools.

Some Finding, Suggestion and Recommendation

Findings:
It is quite obvious that the LICs decision to drive its premiums growth on the
strength of unit link products (ULP) .the group business has also witnessed
some churning as the market has become more competitive. It is observed that

22

this has been time for the term business. Today group products are offered all
the life insurers. It is observed that none of the new insurers have been able to
generate surplus on their revenue account. On the contrary the cumulative
losses of the private insurers have increased considerably. It is observed that
the LIC of India continued to earn profits from operations, with a small
decline in the volume of profit, which is a result of re-entry of the private
players.
it is observed that so as to satisfy customers expectations the insurance
companies came up with many attractive insurance plans such as pension
products, unit link policies, providing certain top-up facility ,riders tailored
products, bundled products, mutual funds, mutual funds with life insurance
policies.
It is observed in India and Iran that the agents are plying vital role to equip the
customers with the knowledge of many insurance products, credibility of
insurance company, financial solvency of the company and also occupying
good insurance businesses, on the basis of the training and education imported
by the insurance companies to them from time to time.
it is observed that out of eight promotional mix strategies in india ,sales
promotion and word of mouth ranked number one with highest score which
is followed by Public Relation and Direct Marketing ranked second and
remaining all other strategies ranked third by scoring equal.
It is also observed that the promotional strategies adopted by the insurance
companies in India captured more percentage (i.e. 16 %) in the case of sales
promotion and word of mouth and comparatively low percentage (i.e. 14 %) in
the case of Public Relation and Publicity and direct marketing.

23

 it is observed that out of e eight promotional mix strategies in Iran ,sales

promotion and word of mouth ranked number one with highest score which
is followed by Public Relation and Direct Marketing ranked second and
remaining all other strategies ranked third by scoring equal.
It is observed that, there are similarities and differences between Promotional
mix strategies in India and Iran, both countries have emphasized on Public
Relation and Publicity, Sales Promotion as promotional tools for induce
consumer. Researcher noticed the life insurance companies in India also take
into consideration the word of mouth, direct marketing where as the life
insurance companies in Iran have emphasized in Telemarketing, Advertising
in electronic and print media an, advertising campaign as additional
promotional mix strategies.
It is observed that long term saving benefit is ranked highest by the
respondents from Iran. it clearly means that like Indian clients of insurance
,the clients of life insurance in Iran do not give utmost importance to family
protection .on the other hand ,they are more concerned of long term saving.
It is also observed that, there are similarities in utilities like long term saving,
family protection, tax saving in Iran and India where as the respondents from
Iran expected two more utilities of insurance such as: a) Risk Coverage
b) pension benefit
Suggestion:
The foreign insurance companies have high quality public relation department
but in public sector of insurance companies in Iran and India, public relation
activities of world class are not observed, which makes their task of publishing

24

insensitive. In this context it is suggested that overriding priority need to be

given to this dimension of promotion.
It is suggested that, incentives to the end user for taking a policy need to be
given. Such incentives would help to increase the insurance business.
Implementation of innovative idea in sales promotion will help the insurance
companies to establish the growth of the business of insurance companies in
both countries (Iran and India).
The insurance companies need to recruit efficient personnel who can discharge
their functional responsibility in right fashion. Even sophisticated technology
should be used by insurance companies on priority basis.
As the people are interested more in pension plan and security, which research
has already proved, it is suggested that the insurance companies should come
up with excellent plans which will delight their customers and satisfy their
above expectations.
The insurance companies in India and Iran are suggested to conduct training
programs for the agents and field employees, with an intention to equip them
with recent knowledge of new insurance product, recent trend in promotional
strategies techniques to deliver the correct information to the end users.
It is suggested that considering an association between gender of the
respondent and advertisement recall, effort need to be directed to apply
innovative promotional mix so as grab more insurance business by right mix
of promotional mix.
As Indian customer of insurance prefers family protection, long term saving
and tax saving m, the insurance companies are suggested to mold their
promotional strategies on the basis of above priorities.

25

 As Iranian customers of insurance prefers long term saving, risk coverage,

family protection and then tax saving .the insurance companies are suggested
to mold their promotional strategies on the basis of above preferences and
priorities, so as to grab more business by catering exact scenario required by
their prospects and customers.
As there is an association between the market research and survey with flurry
of media, it is suggested that efforts need to be diverted by the insurance
companies to establish market research department in insurance companies.
Market research provide the precise information for insurance companies and
enable them to choose a right mix of promotional strategies to inform and
pursued the end users of insurance products in both countries.

Researcher Student:

Researcher Guide:

Alireza Miremadi

Dr.B.V.Sangvikar

26