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OVERVIEW:

A common perception of insurance in most African countries is that carriers generally fail to honor the contracts policy, while insured losses occur, and in most cases, use of fine prints included in these insurance contracts to deny any claims or significantly reduce claim payments. Such is the refrain heard not only among policyholders and customers, but with alarming regularity of the general public, resulting in the negative rates and low penetration of insurance products and services in most African countries.

Although several factors can be easily identified as drivers of this perception, including lack of adequate understanding of the insurance contract, its terms and conditions, restrictions, warranties, exclusions and deductibles including the legal and regulatory various countries, the focus of this article is and the role of marketing and sales of insurance, including its technological, regulatory and management strategies can be used as a vehicle for effective teaching for change not only perception above but by the claims process more transparent and beneficial to the insured.

There is thus a direct corollary between the marketing of insurance, technical knowledge of the agent, the types of coverages and policies available and if an application is denied or underpaid in the event of a disaster insured.

THE SIERRA LEONE CASE STUDY:

For decades, the marketing of insurance products and services in Sierra Leone has hinged primarily on the agency “direct” method, in which business agents earn wages or as independent contractors are paid commissions on sales purely to sell and market their products. The marketing policies of life insurance, property and liability policies such as fire, marine, accident and allies have been mostly sold by the agents of the company.

For example, while I was at the National Insurance Company (NIC) 1981-1985, the sales company executive has been marketing its leaders, sometimes with little technical knowledge or not the complexity of risk management and collateral insurance products merely sold the policies like commodities. The unpleasant task most often in advising policyholders that their claims are not covered by the terms of the contract of insurance in general was our responsibility in the claims department. Until then, it was too late to remedy the coverage right has not been sold either to the insured by the agents or managers of alternative policies that might have covered any gaps in policy sale were not disclosed or explained to the insured. Enough questions the lack of coverage, adequacy of coverage for the claimed losses resulted in the denial or underpayment of claims.

The sales function of these agents have focused on the marketing of products or policies of differentiation with little or no product or creativity in their design and marketing to meet the contemporary risks facing a country like Sierra Leone, emerging a decade long civil war and the longing for the creation of policies to address its development aspirations.

For example, the old “Kebbay syndrome Insurance, practiced in Sierra Leone, where an insurance company has become so notorious in the practice of collecting premiums from customers cars without concurrent payment claims when accidents occurred . Such a practice also common in the insurance market in Sierra Leone in the years 1970 to 1990 be precluded from all its ugliness in the market today.

Marketing as defined by the American Marketing Association (AMA), is the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services between the producer and consumer. Property, Accident and marketing liability insurance, however, includes not only traditional sales marketing function, but includes services such as analyzing customer needs, market segmentation, product development and distribution should be integrated into a successful marketing mix.

Insurance Marketing:

A fundamental principle of insurance marketing requires insurance products and policies must be marketed and sold primarily on the basis of security needs and the ability of insurance product and policies to ensure adequate financial security against accidental loss. In addition, new sources of commercial production, which includes new ways to sell insurance products old and traditional, in conjunction with the marketing of new services, such as risk management, loss control and settlement services claim to be pursued by insurance companies.

However, in certain branches of insurance, a compulsion governmental law or regulation to ensure is the determining factor. For example, buying an automobile liability insurance is required by law in most jurisdictions around the world. The proposed requirement recently advocated a policy of title insurance in real estate transactions in Sierra Leone and a national health insurance policy or workers’ compensation are examples of such legal obligation.

To a large extent they have and continue to be the principles and services absent in the marketing mix of insurance products in Sierra Leone, leading to the recent spectacular failures in introducing new products and / or failures in market penetration of various policies the most diverse in the insurance market. For example, the failure of various insurance companies, including the spectacular failure of the country’s largest insurance company, National Insurance Company (NIC) to introduce and effectively market a national policy of Insurance (Nicaragua) since 2004 is a case study of a monumental failure of marketing requiring analysis in a future article.

THE FUNCTION OF SALES:

Officer to succeed, however, a producer of insurance / must develop other skills in addition to selling skills to include:

1) Technical expertise in the principles of insurance and guarantees, as customers usually depend on their agents for advice on choosing the right combination of insurance products and identifying gaps in security.

2) skills in the analysis of consumer needs through techniques of risk management identification and adaptation of insurance programs are a prerequisite.

The first step in managing the risk of a consumer needs is through the identification and analysis of risk of loss to which a client or subject is exposed through an investigation of insurance. The agent must educate and be able to impact a sufficient risk of losing the client and the available safeguards and other mechanisms to transfer confidence to the customer.

MANAGEMENT OF SALES:

Generally, the concept of insurance sales involved the active participation and leadership of the sales force provided by the management for the nature and amount of desired business by the insurer. This involves determining the direction of:

1) The segments of the market available that can be achieved most effectively by agents of the company.

2) The nature of product / policy to be more appealing to specific market segments and most profitable insurer.

3) How to better select, train and motivate producers and agents to sell to specific market segments.

The selection of geographical, demographic and / or industrial sectors of the market to target the marketing of insurance products provides an effective market segmentation and the effective use of resources. Demographic groups may still be defined by characteristics such as age, income, occupation and sex.

With the use of such a technique, for example, various insurance coverages covering health policy, medical, accident, disability and workers compensation to name a few, could be adapted and offered to segments such as officials, parliamentarians, teachers, teachers colleges, providers of health care, the Okada riders and farmers across the country. The same could apply to the security sector, including policies designed specifically to meet the needs of the army and police forces.

In addition, by using techniques of product differentiation in its marketing mix, an insurer may maintain and increase its market share. These can be achieved by changing the standard cover provisions in the contract, pay a different price and providing a different level of service than the competition.

TECHNOLOGIES:

With the progressive installation of computers in insurance companies in Sierra Leone, new technologies are ready to play a major role in coordinating marketing strategies, planning and studies including new products and services, attitudes of consumers, market potential and sales forecasting. The use of computers for not accounting, statistical analysis and pricing and issuing policies and endorsements, but also the marketing of insurance must be actively pursued by individual companies.

Creating a database marketing insurance companies separate and apart from the subscription databases disaster must be a step in the right direction in implementing the new marketing strategy.

Marketing problems:

The challenge and the local industry is the need for diversification of insurance products best suited and able to meet the needs and development. For if the insurance industry can play a very important and essential in the development process of a nation, the challenge now facing is how our insurance professionals respond by introducing creative fonts insurance, tools and marketing techniques as a basis for the country’s sustained economic development.

In the U.S. there are four separate systems for marketing the property and liability insurance. These include:

Independent agency network.

The system of exclusive representation (also known as captive agency system).

The system of direct writing.

The mailing system.

The system primarily used in the insurance market, Sierra Leone is the direct writing system in which individual carriers employ their staff on the payroll and employees exclusively market their policies. However, if the insurance market in Sierra Leone is to survive and grow, as new players and products such as the national system of health insurance and national insurance titles are entering the market, then Development of a new breed of producers, agents and marketing systems should be pursued to prevent the failures of recent introductions of new policies. They must understand and integrate direct mail, agency and technology systems.

To put this marketing objective of a sales force must be recruited and trained in the complexities of the business of insurance policies being introduced and marketed with realistic production goals, policies and strategies marketing and implementation of advertising and promotion campaign.

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