Selling Insurance Online is the Future; Saves Time and Resources : Aviva Marketing Director Gaurav Rajput

by Leplan on November 14th, 2011

It’s the Social Media era, the era of Tweets, social updates and blogs. Every individuals and business are impacted by it. The digital and new media fever has impacted most industries; Life Insurance is no different.

I got chance to discuss about digital initiatives taken by the company and general Indian market with Mr Gaurav Rajput, Director Marketing for Aviva India. Gaurav has an MBA from Welingkar Institute of Management, Mumbai and has spent over 13 years in the Media and Advertising industry. He joined Aviva in 2009 from Citibank, where he headed the marketing initiatives for NRI Banking.

Gaurav is a big believer of digital media and feels financial bloggers are educating the general mass, which was supposed to be done by the insurance companies. The readers and views get interested from the blogs become the potential customers for the companies, he feels.

On Insurance Industry and Digital Link

Gaurav says Insurance industry in India is fairly young. It is just about 10 years, and has features of youth. The industry is growing well and is well absorbing new technologies and innovate newer ways of reaching and serving the mass.

In his view, aggregator websites have added a lot of value to the ecosystem. They educate people and suggest people as independent consultants, which bring transparency in the insurance business. It also provides facility to compare prices and features, and ensure right product sale to the customer.

On Online Channel

Online channel is growing fast and it can only go up. There are 60 million searches in Google in a year and that is a huge volume for any insurance player to focus on.

The value of online channel is more than just reach. It also removes lot of costs as customer buys directly from the company. This is passed directly to the consumer and ultimately consumer wins.

Company also assumes the online customer to be living good lifestyle, Mr Rajput adds.

When asked about exact percentage saving on online channel, he says it ranges between 25 to 40%.

Competition

There are several companies selling insurance online. When asked how consumers buy his products, he says it mostly depends on price and reputation of the company.

Currently Aviva sells only one term product online called Aviva i-Life. It is very simple product and has used ultra-low price for maximising sales.

When asked if they use coupons or discounts, Mr. Rajput says the practice is not allowed by IRDA guidelines. It is bound by law and any company giving discount might just be cheating.

About Claims Rejection

I had heard about very high claims rejection ration by the online insurance sellers. Mr. Rajput rejects the notion and says claims rejection ratio is published by IRDA, and the information is in public domain. No companies have rejection ratio above 15% and Aviva fares better with less than 10%.

Buyers should be very honest while describing their existing medical disclosures and lifestyle, he adds. Most user claims are rejected because people don’t tell the truth while taking the policy.

This is a very important point raise by Mr Rajput. It is always in the consumer interest to be honest. Else life insurance is of no use; it just becomes a plain expenditure.

Differentiation

Aviva’s online insurance policy is the cheapest in the market. It also has minimum documentation and user can avoid courier by using document upload facility. This seems awesome.

Business Volume

Last 4 months of product launch, the company has sold 7k policies. It is a significant number, Rajput feels.

He adds industry average sales volume from regular channels is only 25-30k policies per month.

How is it marketed?

Online products are marketedonline; Mr Rajput makes a strong statement. He focused on SEO, banner ads, and third party advertising. Marketing is largely for Aviva Life; vouchers/bonus etc are not allowed under insurance regulations.

Aviva does not use Social Media aggressively. They have a Facebook page for “Educational Insurance”, which promotes book sharing. The Aviva Great Wall of Education initiative has been able to collect over 10 lac books, which were distributed among the underprivileged children.

The initiative is a part of Aviva Street to Education, a Global Campaign from Aviva.

He ends the conversation saying, Aviva is highly positive about the online market and it can only grow from here. They plan to launch more products online, which includes child plan and few others.

Ending Thoughts

This was a useful conversation with Mr Rajput, and I thank him for his valuable inputs. I am hoping this article helps the readers to make better decision in taking their insurance policies.

Thanks to Anuradha from Adfactor for making this interview happen. She has taken the pain connecting us and fixing times.

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