Mr. Subhankar Sengupta Country Head – UBI, Agency & Business Partnerships, oversees IndiaFirst Life’s partnership businesses comprising the regional rural banks, broking and corporate agency, rural and micro channels in association with the agency, and Direct Sales channels. His responsibilities thus centre around extending insurance penetration avenues beyond the company’s parent banks, Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank.A seasoned executive with a professional journey spanning over 23 years.

Q. What kind of challenges you and your agents’ network have faced in the last 5 months?

Agency is a traditional channel. The practice largely revolves around meeting the customer to discuss the insurance products and offerings. Due to the global pandemic, we witnessed a paradigm shift in interactions as everyone is consciously following social distancing for safety. This has impacted both, the agent and the customer as they are wary of physical meetings since late March. As we moved into a lockdown period, placing agents and carriers to manage submission flow became more restrictive and submission volume went up along with exceptions and exclusions. 

The challenge was to get the agents and customers to adapt to concluding the sale process digitally. Here, technology helped in mitigating some of the burden of agents and carriers. Getting onto end to end solutions and adapting to selling and receiving services was of the utmost importance. Video calling services have emerged and developed over the last few months. They have become the “new normal” way of selling. Agency channel is now converging on digital platforms to recognise the performance of agents and motivate MDRT aspirants in presence of their peers. 

Q. What are the challenges you anticipate for the next 7 months?

Considering the new industry landscape, we have bucketed the challenges into three broad categories: 

• Recruitment of new agents: Identification and recruitment of new agents is clearly one of the most critical processes in the upcoming months. Discussing their career prospects, and handholding them to sell their initial few policies are challenging with very limited physical meeting options.

• MDRT membership and lucrativeness of the MDRT recognition: The MDRT qualifiers look forward to lucrative overseas travel and recognition along with the interactions with other international qualifiers. Due to the current travel restrictions, MDRT has postponed such travels and meets, which has taken away the lucrativeness of the programme. This in turn has impacted the business productivity of the aspirants.

• Training and development of Agents: A regular and continuous programme of skilling and upskilling of agents is an integral part of the Agency channel. While the digital trainings can be conducted for around three hours at a stretch, the effectiveness starts to reduce after some sessions due to limited interactivity and personal connect. This stretches the training programmes and affects the development of the agents. At IndiaFirst Life we have introduced app-based digital learning, which can be accessed and completed by the agents at their convenience and pace. This option is being used and has seen better uptake during this period.

Q. Do you think online sales of retail products will take over traditional sales in the next 5 years? 1) If Yes, Why? If No, Why?

If by online purchase we mean customers themselves visiting some web site or through an app buying himself / herself a life insurance policy, I do not see that happening more than an intermediary advising and assisting the sale over an online medium or over paperless process. This is due to the very nature of Life Insurance. Term policies are simpler, and they may be bought by the customer directly. Other type of policies like a Savings Policy (Guaranteed or Non-Guaranteed returns plan) or Investment Plans (ULIPs) are more complicated and customers generally prefer to consult to understand the details. Term policies constitute a minority of the total policies sold still.

Q. What future do you see for your existing agents’ network?

Agents have been among the most dependable distribution channels for Insurers, the reason being its traditional and in-personal service delivery not just in India but across the world. The pandemic has brought forth their dependability and has renewed the importance of having a strong and vibrant Agency Channel. Insurers who did not have a strong agency channel are trying to build one and others will continue to fortify their existing channel. 

IndiaFirst Life has already identified Agency as a growth channel before the pandemic and we are focused on strengthening our agents base and the channel.

Q. What are your plans for expanding the agent network?

We are focused on Agency Channel and will continue to expand our Agent network across the length and breadth of the country.

Q. From the agent's point of view which product do you think will do well in the next 2 years and why?

Currently, Term and Saving plans are selling very well. Given the current macro-economic scenario, our strategy for the current year is to observe, adapt and improvise. Given the precariousness of the situation, it will be nearly impossible to make any short-term predictions. The economic uncertainty seems to have spurred interest in policies with guaranteed returns other than Term plans. Our agents will do well to focus on these categories of products.

http://www.insurancealertss.com//Insurance/Service/%20INDIAS%20BEST%20INSURANCE%20AGENT%20AWARDS%202020