A buyer vs. seller perspective of 7Ps in post-liberalisation Indian Life Insurance sector

This study attempts to assess the impact of 7Ps on the customers’ policy purchasing decisions. It was widely assumed that both the customers (buyers) and the executives (sellers) involved in the life insurance marketing process have different perceptions regarding the impact of these various elements of 7Ps on the customers’ decision to choose a policy. The causes and degree of these differences were examined further.

This study incorporates primary data which included 405 life insurance policy holders and 207 life insurance executives involved in the life insurance marketing process. The collected data was subjected to reliability and validity tests first and then ANOVA and t-Test were applied to compare the means of the various categories of respondents.

After a thorough empirical investigation, it was found that ‘policy elements’, ‘policy pricing’ and the ‘people’ associated with the policy marketing process influence the customers most to buy a life insurance product.

The time and the area covered under the study were very limited owing to unavoidable constraints. The sample size was also not large enough to provide universally acceptable findings. But, this study has managed to explore an area which was not studied earlier as it directly dealt with the front- end players in the market.

This study will be very helpful to the Indian life insurers in understanding their executives and in reaching out to the prospective customers.

This study is a value addition to earlier studies in this field. It also brings a fresh breeze to the life insurance marketing process in India which is still based on traditional and obsolete strategies.