Targeting of Unit-linked Insurance plans (ULIPs):

The biggest innovation for the insurance industry over the past couple of years has been the Unit-linked Insurance plans (ULIPs). It was fuelled by a booming stock market. It is seen as a direct competitor to the Mutual fund industry with value addition of insurance as well. However the downward spiral of the markets after the recent crisis has directly affected the ULIPs where the majority is invested in the Equity markets.

To be different from competition and get people to buy ULIP products, two things can be done:

1. Understand consumer behaviour and appropriate targeting-

There are 3 types of customers for ULIPs- General public accounting for almost 90% of the buyers who are unaware of the intricacies of this financial product and are conned by salespeople. These people are influenced by peers and hearsay. These are the type of people who have stayed away from ULIPS recently resulting in the dip in sales.

Second type is the informed public who account fro about 5-7%. These people have become conservative in investing in ULIP and are very circumspect and waiting for equity markets to resurrect.

Third type is the High-net worth individuals (HNIs) who account for just 1-2%. The next point will elaborate on the same.

2. Sectoral choice availability-

Presently a customer doesn’t know which sector his investment is done. He just gets daily updates in the Net Asset Value (NAV). For making ULIPs attractive for HNIs, three things can be done- give option of sector such as infrastructure, banking, PSU, FMCG or telecom or commodity markets. They can be divided according to growth fund where there are high returns but commensurately high risk too. Then their can be safe and fixed returns funds with minimum risk. And finally exotic funds with exponential growth options where the money would be exposed to high risk and complex financial products such as Credit Default Swaps (CDS), commodities, bonds, currencies among others.

Both these methods are possible. Only appropriate data needs to be collated.

Lastly Perceptual Mapping also can be done but it is from marketing point of view only and has to be done every 3-5 years or if you have changed your value proposition. Just like what Bajaj Allianz did with its digression to emotional appeal from a practical one.