Bancassurance:A New Way of Insurance Marketing

Bancassurance is a technique of selling insurance products through banks. Traditionally, Insurance products were sold only by insurance agents but time is demanding for innovative distribution channel so that more customers can access the insurance products in more economical ways. The concept of bancassurance, first introduced in Europe, is now being practiced by banks in most of the countries. It is an important collaborative technique, linking together the banking and insurance sectors, which are the two important wheels of the cart of financial system of a country. Through Bancassurance banks can increase their profits with existing resources and insurance companies can reach larger customer base. In the last financial year, India has experienced a substantial growth in the life insurance business. The new business premium growth rate for this financial year over the previous financial year is 36%. This growth is primarily due to bancassurance but the expected level of growth can not be touched unless some new marketing strategies are adopted by banks.

This paper analyses Bancassurance as an important technique of marketing of insurance products. It will discuss the benefits of Bancassurance for insurance and banking companies. In this paper SWOT analysis of Bancassurance has been done to help in assessing the attractiveness and risk involved in Bancassurance. This paper would have been incomplete without the proper review of current scenario of Bancassurance. Through this paper an attempt has been made to identify the problems in implementing the Bancassurance and some measures have been suggested for smooth implementation of Bancassurance. A special emphasis has been given to convertibility of banking and insurance products, which might be very beneficial for the customers. The heart of the paper lies in providing innovative suggestions for improving the Bancassurance so that its advantages can be accrued by all the parties concerned viz. the banks, insurance companies and the people of the country.