“It’s not just the insurance you have provided us with. It’s like a social security for us. Better than any government card. Their benefits don’t reach us. And until now it was difficult to trust the insurance companies or their agents for the fake commitments, they have made to us for years- just to sell the policy,” These are the words of one the happy customers of Policy Ensure from a smaller city.
Insurance mis-selling is not something new. The government regulators like IRDAI are working towards curbing it however are not very successful because of geographical constraints and mis representation of information especially in tier 2-3 cities.
“Over the years, insurance is probably the one financial product that has been mis-sold the most. One reason is lack of involvement of the buyer and the other reason is false explanations by the agent.”—Outlook (January 2022)
Policy Ensure took an exhaustive look into this challenging area of concern for Insurance in non metro cities and customers to understand the different forms of mis-selling such as forging benefits, exaggerating benefits, misrepresentation of the policy, miscalculating benefits, bundling insurance policies, or false promises of bonus and additional benefits.
Eventually there is a financial loss as the premium paid gets wasted and the features or benefits are of no use to the customer. Sometimes policy sold is not best suited to their requirements, they stop paying for it and the premium paid in the past gets wasted.
It doesn’t stop here. Even the bigger loss is when the beneficiary in the customer’s family who was supposed to get these benefits or sum assured, is left with no support in the long run.
“Policy Ensure would stand out as first preference of the insurance customers if able to address this bigger issue of mis-selling along with relevant reach to every part of real India i.e Bharat” says Rahul M Mishra, Co-founder, Policy Ensure.
That’s where the blend of digital with physical distribution network was done by using PHYGITAL approach.
“This blend brings in the benefits of Insurance aggregator model with complete information availability about insurance products through digital assets and platforms with no ambiguity or mis-representation. At the same time, it added more value by putting a well-connected physical distribution network in place with technology enablement. As we worked towards and envisioned for Policy Ensure to bring the necessary credibility to insurance sector” shared Pankaj Vashistha (PV), Co-Founder, Policy Ensure.
The PHYGITAL approach has enhanced the awareness among buyers in a very friendly way. Customers can get involved in the buying process. They can look at the complete information about different plans in a transparent manner as published. Then there is also a local hand holding available of Policy Ensure team so that the buyers can make the right selection by comparing plans, benefits, Advantages, features and quotes given by different insurers.
“In coming days chances are very high that customer will start seeing insurance as ‘insurance only’ rather treating it as some kind of an investment plan or to buy because of freebies upon purchase of insurance policy”- added PV
