A PROJECT REPORT ON

STUDY OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AT LIC PRUDENTIAL LIFE INSURANCE

Review of Literature
LIC Prudential Life Insurance is one of the largest Insurance networks in the country, and 1nd Insurance Company in India. The LIC Group has been in existence since 1955 when LIC Ltd., was created. LIC Prudential started in 2002 as subsidiary of LIC Ltd., Today LIC Life Insurance has a customer base of 4 million with total assets exceeding Rs.1, 00,000 Cr. making it the 1nd largest life insurance company in the country. The Insurance sector, after the opening up, provides greater opportunities. Several global players have emerged and the market has changed significantly. In the changed scenario, the expectation is that the low Insurance premium as a percentage of GDP prevailing in India will improve and will offer better opportunities to the insurance players. Life Insurance sector is one of the key areas where enormous business potential exists. In India currently the life insurance premium as a percentage of GDP is 1.3 per cent against 5.2 per cent in the US, but in the liberalized scenario, the life insurance premiums were projected to grow at around 18% to 20% from Rs 215 billion in 1998- 99 to Rs 592 billion in 2004-05 and to Rs 1450 billion by 2009-10. Corporate non-life premium was projected to grow from Rs 84 billion in 1998-99 to Rs 386 billion in 2009-10 and personal line non-life from Rs 4 billion to Rs 51 billion. In the life Insurance segment the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is the major player. The LIC has 2050 branches. It is constituted in to seven Zones. Currently there are 5, 60,000 LIC agents in India. General Insurance is another segment, which has been growing at a faster pace.

Objective of the proposed study

The project is concerned with the STUDY ON CONSUMER PREFRENCE TOWARDS LIC. This study is very useful as the financial market become more sophisticated and complex, investor needs a financial intermediary who provides the required knowledge and professional expertise on successful investing and Life insurance is a form of insurance that pays monetary proceeds upon the death of the insured covered in the policy. Essentially, a life insurance policy is a contract between the named insured and the insurance company wherein the insurance company agrees to pay an agreed upon sum of money to the insured's named beneficiary so long as the insured's premiums are current

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research in common parlance refers to a search for knowledge. One can also define research as a scientific and systematic search for pertinent information on a specific topic. The word research has been derived from French word Researcher means to search. FRANCIES RUMMER defined Research: It is a careful inquiry or examination to discover new information or relationship and to expand or verify existing knowledge. Research is the solution of the problem, whether created or already generated. When research is done, some new out come, so that the problem (created or generated) to be solved. RESEARCH DESIGN: Research Design is the conceptual structure within which research is conducted. It constitutes the blueprint for collection, measurement and analysis of data. The design used for carrying out this research is Descriptive. DATA TYPE: In this research the type of data collection is Primary data Secondary data

DATA SOURCE: The sources of collection of secondary data are: Questionnaire

Books Websites Magazine Brochure

SAMPLING PLAN: It is very difficult to collect information from every member of a population .As time and costs are the major limitation that the researcher faces.

A sample of 100 was taken the sample size of 100 individuals were selected on the basis of convenient sampling technique. The individuals were selected in the random manner to form sample and data were collected from them for the research study. ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION: Data collection through questionnaire and personnel interview resulted in availability of the desired information but these were useless until there were analyzed. Various steps required for this purpose were editing, coding and tabulating. Tabulating refers to bringing together similar data and compiling them in an accurate and meaningful manner. The data collected by questionnaire was analyzed, interpreted with the help of table, bar chart and pie chart.

Scope of the study

For every problem there is a research. As all the researches are based on some and my study is also based upon some objective and these are as follows. 1. To understand the insurance business and products of LIC Prudential life insurance co ltd. 2. To find out the peoples perception about life insurance. 3. To find out whether people were really aware of life insurance. 4. To find out how people think about private life insurance. 5. To find out what respondents expect from life insurance. 6. To understand Consumer buying behavior 7. To come out with conclusion and suggestions based on the analysis and the Interpretation of data

Review of Literature: 1) retention of the customers is the essence of insurance business, imtiyaz.h ltd.vasi do, insurance times (pg 20).feb 2007-: retaining a customer is four time cheaper than acquiring a new one. the retention of the customers is of utmost importance in the insurance industry in specification. insurance business is of the relationship building process. wereone customer leads to the building of other one. a satisfied customer is like a wordof mouth advertisement for the company. the needs of the existing customers should be identified andsatisfied well rather than only concentrating at the new accounts. all possible measures needs to taken toretain the customers as it is lesser costlier as well as provides stability to the business . 2) trends in life insurance businessunit linked insurance plans, irda annual report 2007-08,box item 1, page no. 15-: it wasnt too long back when the good old endowment plan was the preferred way to insure oneself against an eventualityand to set aside some savings to meet ones financial objectives. the traditionalendowment policies were investingfunds mainly in fixed interest government securities and other safeinvestments to ensure the safety of capital. thus thetraditional emphasis was always on security of capitalrather than yield. however, with the inflationary trend witnessed allover the world, it was observed thatsavings through life insurance were becoming unattractive and not meeting theaspirations of the policyholders.the policyholder found that the sum assured guaranteed on maturity had really depreciated in real value because of thedepreciation in the value of money. the investor was no longer content with the so calledsecurity of capital provided under a policy of life insuranceand started showing a preference for higher rate of return on his investments as also forcapital appreciation. it was, therefore found necessary for the insurance companies to think of a method whereby the expectation of the policyholders could be satisfied. the object was to provide a hedge against the inflation through acontract of insurance. decline of assuredreturn endowment plans and opening of the insurance sector saw the advent ofulips on the domestic insurance horizon. today, the indian life insurance market is riding high on the unit linked insurance plans 3) sampada kapse & d.g kodwani, insurance as an investment option, the insurance time, may2003 at national as at individual level the excess of income after consumption levelsavings as funds for investment. surplus funds can be invested in either realasset or in financial assets. purpose of investmentis to protect ones wealthagainst erosion of value due to inflation and to earn risk adjusted return. thereare three motives which drive people to purchase insurance products in india. _ desire to cover risk _ tax benefit _ saving motivesit is argued that in this paper that in the changing scenario for the insurancesector there is going to be agood opportunities for insurance sector toexpand itsmarket base. For this purpose there is need toimprove the features of theinsurance products to make them more liquid or short term schemes could beincreased. it is shown that although rewards implied by the insurance productsparticularly bythe tax benefits are quite close to those observed in banks andsmall saving scheme of the governments.the performance of

mutual funds which come in many different types is found tobe reasonable compared tothe risk involved. the survey indicates that it may notbe very difficult to win over the confidence of smallinvestors towards insurancepolicies if good marketing techniques are adopted to educate the targeted population about the uses of insurance policies from investment point of view. 4) samuel b sekar, research associate, academic wing, the icfai university, customer driveninnovation in insurance products, insurance chronicle, page 33, july 2006-: insurance is one product which is notdemanded by a customer, but supplied to him by massive educationand drive marketing. insurance ought to be bought not sold. the new concept of demand side innovationfocuses more oncustomers social and economic reality striving to deliver maximum value to thecustomer at an affordable price. therefore, when the customer becomes the primary focus including himin the invention process becomes mandatory. but, there are certain areas of insurance innovations wherethe customers cannot be involved. a case in point is the recent insurance product invention calledtelematic auto insurance. its a product by the progressive auto insurance, which monitors the driving behaviour of its auto insurance policyholder. the new machine grabs information and automatically This information received is regularly analyzed to judicially conclude theintensity of risk the person is exposedand the corresponding premium he is eligible to pay. this is anexample of supply side innovation, where it is strictly not possible to include the customer in theinnovation process. though, there are instances where the customer is involved in the testing phase, hisinclusion in the conception phase makes an innovation demand-driven.