INTRODUCTION
I am doing my summer internship project from SBI Life insurance Company limited, Greater Noida. SBI Life Insurance is a joint venture life insurance company between State Bank of India (SBI), the largest state-owned banking and financial services company in India, and BNP Paribas Assurance (French bank). SBI owns 74% of the total capital and BNP Paribas Assurance the remaining 26% of the capital. SBI Life Insurance has an authorized capital of ₹20 billion and a paid up capital of ₹10 billion.
SBI Life was founded in March 2001 and its Main Headquarter is in Mumbai, India. SBI Life has 7,334 on- roll employees and about 96000 agents.(Wikipedia).
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The topic of my research is “Analysis of Challenges and Issues faced by Tied Agency Distribution Channel”.
Tied agency distribution channel is the oldest and the most efficient distribution channel in insurance sector but now many life insurance companies are closing their tied agency channel and want to enter in new distribution channels like banc assurance or direct selling through internet.
Therefore the primary objective of the research is to find out the issues and challenges faced by the tied agency distribution channel especially challenges, issues and problems faced by financial advisors(agents) and unit managers of life insurance companies. Agents are the most important part of the agency channel because they directly contact people and they are face of the company. But apart from agents, role of the manager linked with the agents cannot be ignored because they are the direct contact point for the agents. Hence this study focuses on the analysis of the challenges and issues faced by the agents as well as the unit mangers of different life insurance companies.
CURRENT STATUS OF AGENCY CHANNEL
SBI Life, Greater Noida has 128 financial advisors (agents) and 5 unit managers which altogether have given 5.75crore of business in last financial year which is among