An ethical introspection of selling life insurance in India M R ahesh*, Selection Grade Lecturer, Dr. Venkatesh S**, Assistant Professor *DOS in Business Admn., University of Mysore, Mysore -06 **Dept of Management, Maharaja’s College,University of Mysore, Mysore – 05 Online published on 31 January, 2012. Abstract The landscape of Indian life insurance industry changed to a great degree due to opening up of insurance sector to private entry in India. Now as many as 22 private joint ventures and the public sector giant LIC are trying to entice the Indian consumers with well-designed products and benefits. In the process, the competition to lure the insurance buyers has reached such a feverish pitch where a lot of manipulations and unethical practices are taking place, in spite of stringent regulations of IRDA. These issues begin with unscientific appointment of insurance advisors, selling insurance policies without a proper need analysis of the investors, resorting to superficial health checkups as a part of the procedure, absence of follow-up of the existing policies as promised at the time of sale, ultimately leading to an increase in premature lapsation of insurance policies especially in private insurance companies. These are the ethical issues they can ill afford to ignore at this point in time as the corporate India is still coming to terms with the fallout of global meltdown. This paper attempts to throw light on these ethical dimensions of life insurance business and probable suggestions to lend dignity to insurance business thereby the industry can attract best human talent to cope up with challenges posed by liberalization and global economic meltdown. Top Keywords Ethics, TCF, IRDA, ULIPs. Top |