A Study of Product Quality of Selected Public and Private Sector Life Insurance Companies

Abstract

The need for insurance is as old as commerce and trading in the civilized world. Risk is inherent to life, commerce, trading etc. The insurance will provide safety to it. Insurance sector has been playing a leading role in the financial system of India. It has also been facilitating an objective to build an efficient, effective and a stable economic environment in India. It also caters to the needs of the both real economy and socio-economic objective of the country. It is making inroads into the interiors of the economy and is being considered as one of the fast developing areas in the Indian financial sector. It has been mobilizing long-term saving through life insurance to support economic growth and also facilitating economic development. In India after a monopoly of public sector life Insurance company for decades, the sector was opened for the private players in order to bring consumerism in real sense. The healthy competition among these companies has resulted in to better quality, customizations, innovations, choice, value, and affordability of the product offerings. The current study attempts to study the product offerings of largest public sector life insurance Company of India Life Insurance Corporation of India and the private giant ICICI prudential life insurance company Ltd on the aspects of applicability of SERVQUAL dimensions to current product offering and to study and compare the perception of customers in terms of service quality. The study discovers their present levels of the product offerings on the basis of SERVQUAL dimensions. The study also attempts to compare perceived quality of product offerings of the selected life insurance companies on SERVQUAL dimensions. It is an exploratory research study, which after development of conceptual frame work deploys structured instrument and statistical analysis tools like Eigen value scores and variance to measure the output. This study shall be helpful to give a wonderful insight to the practicing managers to identify the gap and take