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By Senuri de Silva
September will be Life Insurance Month as a nationwide campaign will be launched to visit one million potential customers and sign 75,000 new life insurance policies during the month.
The campaign organised jointly by the Insurance Board of Sri Lanka (IBSL) and the Insurance Association of Sri Lanka (IASL) was presented to the life insurance community at the National Forum for Life Insurance Advisors (NAFLIA) yesterday.
Insurance Board of Sri Lanka (IBSL)ChairpersonIndrani Sugathadasa was the Chief Guest while IBSLDirector GeneralDamayanthi Fernando was the Guest of Honour at this event.
Sugathadasa said: “The day all Sri Lankans are insured is a dream that we can make a reality sooner than later.”
Changing perception
However in order to bring about this result the industry would have to change the perception of insurance as people fail to understand its value as they fail to consider the possibility of something bad happening to them.
She said: “If as an industry we can ensure that everyone is insured then even if the most unfortunate happens atleast they would not have to worry about the financial aspects.”
She also suggested revisiting policies and making certain types of insurance such as healthcarecompulsory to certain classes of individuals as in the US.
According to statistics only 12.6% of the population has life insurance and this is a long way away from the industry goal of insuring every individual in Sri Lanka. However the outlook of officials was positive as the number of policy holders is set to rise while Sri Lanka reaches its economic development goals of $ 5,000 per capita income.
“We are probably at the start of a very exciting future ahead,” IASLPresidentDirk Pereira saidpointing out that the increasing per capita income of the country represents a significant time for the insurance industry with more people being able to afford life insurance policies. Therefore the event also focused on aligning the capabilities of the insurance advisors to meet the rising needs of the market.
The forum encouraged advisors to be active by visiting more potential customers in order to inform them of the need to have life insurance protection. They were also advised to use market segmentation and customer profiling in order to target specific customer needs. Social media was discussed as a useful tool for this purpose.
The logo “the flame of protection” and the tagline “Life Life Get Life” was revealed to the insurance advisor community during the NAFLIA yesterday. The campaign will also focus on creating an online presence with the dedicated website www.livelifegetlife.com and utilising social media to reach new clients through the hashtag #LiveLifeGetLife.
The life insurance month is set to be an annual event and the first official launch will take place on 1 September at Viharamahadevi Park with 1,500 life insurance advisors expected to be in attendance. The flame of protection will be lit by the CEOs of Insurance companies on that day.
This aim of this campaign is to increase the level of activity among life insurance advisors and create awareness of the need for life insurance while increasing the number of life insurance policy holders in Sri Lanka.
Increased activity
Speaking of the numbers, Marketing & Sales Forum (MSF)ChairmanSamithaHemachandra said, “Of the total population of the country only about 12.6% has life insurance.”
This leaves a lot of room for potential growth as the introduction of new life insurance policies spreads across the country. Market penetration can be increased exponentially with sights being set on signing upto 2,800,000 new policies every year.
This goal can be reached if the level of activity among life insurance policy advisors can be increased to signing 3 policies a week, a significant improvement from the present rate which is about two policies signed by an advisor every month.
Creating awareness
The campaign addresses one of the main challenges faced by life insurance policy advisors which is the lack of knowledge among customers for the benefits of life insurance protection. Therefore a goal has also been set to visit one million potential customers during the month of September. It was pointed out that this goal can be reached if each of the 20,000 life insurance policy advisors acting in the country visits five potential customers a day.
Reach the regions
The largest concentration of life insurance policy holders can be found in urban areas as 40% of insurance policies are in the Western province. Therefore during the life insurance month the 15 Insurance companies will also take on 15 different regions where they will carry out promotions to cover more ground and expand the industry even further.
Pix by Lasantha Kumara
