Study of Marketing of Icici Prudential Life Insurance

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 and licensed under and in terms of the Insurance Act, 1938 and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999 to carry out the business of life insurance and having its Registered Office at ICICI Prulife Towers, 1089, Appasaheb Marathe Marg, Prabhadevi Mumbai – 400025. It is a joint venture between ICICI Bank, one of the foremost financial services companies of India and Prudential plc, one of the leading international financial services group headquartered in the United Kingdom. ICICI Prudential was amongst the first private sector life insurance companies to begin operations in December 2000 after receiving approval from Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA). ICICI Prudential Life’s capital stands at Rs. 4,780 crores (as of September 30, 2010) with ICICI Bank and Prudential plc holding 74% and 26% stake respectively. For the period April 1, 2010 to September 30, 2010, the company garnered Rs 7,267 crores of total premiums and has underwritten over 10 million policies since inception.

The company has a network of over 1,500 offices and over 1,60,000 advisors, as on September 30, 2010. The company has assets held over Rs. 65,000 crores as on September 30, 2010. Since the liberalization of Indian Insurance sector, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has been one of the earliest private players. Since the time, ICICI Pru Life has been the leader in terms of market share as indicated by the IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, the regulator for Indian Insurance Industry) at its website. In June, 2009 ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has decided to snap its tie up with TTK Healthcare to settle insurance claims of its users. ICICI Prudential’s life insurance products may be loosely categorized under four forms- Life Plans (further categorised into Term Plans and Wealth Plans), Child Plans, Retirement Plans and Health Plans. Under Life Insurance Plan category it offers term plans like i-Protect online term plan, ICICI Pru Pure-Protect and ICICI Pru LifeGuard, and ULIP wealth plans like ICICI Pru LifeStage Wealth II, ICICI Pru LifeLink Wealth SP, ICICI Pru Pinnacle Super etc.

Marketing approach to life insurance:
Life insurance is a personalize service oriented industry, therefore providing the service that should match the needs and wants of the customer should be a basic objective of life insurance company. The marketing approach in relation to life insurance involves following four steps. 1. Research to determine customer’s insecurity.

2. Designing new policies or innovate old ones.
3. Market services to the customer for whom they where researched and designed at profit. 4. In doing so satisfy the customer’s needs.
Marketing Mix for Insurance Companies: The marketing mix is the combination of marketing activities that an organisation engages in so as to best meet the needs of its targeted market. The Insurance business deals in selling services and therefore due weightage should be given to the formation of marketing mix for the Insurance business. The marketing mix includes sub-mixes of the 7 P’s of marketing i.e. the product, its price, place, promotion, people, process & physical evidence.

OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the insurance business and products of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd. 2. To identify and analyse the marketing mix of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd. 3. To come out with conclusion and suggestions based on the analysis and the interpretation of data.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem it may be understood as a science of studying how research is done scientifically. In it we study the various steps that are generally adopted by a researcher in studying his research problem along with the logic behind them. It is necessary for the researcher to know not only the research methods/techniques but also methodology. Researchers not only need to know how to develop certain indices or tests, how to apply particular research techniques, but they also need to know which of these methods or techniques, are relevant and which are not, and what would they mean and indicate. The research methodology that I will follow in this project is analytical and deductive methodology. Pertinent theoretical information and data will be gathered from various articles, books, journals and the internet. The assimilated information and data will be analyzed on the basis of which conclusions may be drawn. To support the findings of the project a field study may also be conducted to understand the practical aspect of the theoretical inferences. The data so collected will be tabulated, analyzed and interpreted appropriately.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Book:

* V S Ramaswamy& S Namakumari, Marketing Management:Planning, Implementation and Control,3rd Edition, Rajiv Beri for Macmillan India Ltd., 2003 Websites:
* www.managementstudyguide.com
* www.iciciprulife.com
* www.learnmarketing.net