CHAPTER-2

OBJECTIVE AND RESEARCH MYTHODOLOGY

1. Research Objectives of the study

Objectives of Research Study:

To determine Customers preference for ULIP To study the preference of the customer among the selected private insurance companies viz. Bajaj Allianz, ICICI Prudential, Reliance Life as compared to Metlife India

To determine the parameters on which the ULIP plans of METLIFE need improvement. To determine the degree (level) of impact of age on the buying behaviour and finding out the most suitable AGE for ULIP.

2. Research Methodology of the study

Research Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specific components such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools. It can be defined also as follows: 1. "the analysis of the principles of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline"; 2. "the systematic study of methods that are, can be, or have been applied within a discipline" 3. A documented process for management of projects that contains procedures, definitions and explanations of techniques used to collect, store, analyze and present information as part of a research process in a given discipline.
4. The study or description of methods .

The study was aimed at measuring the customers preference for life insurancecompanies and the comparison of ULIP plans of the selected companies on basis of various parameters considered essential for determining where METLIFEs ULIP plans could be improved.

Type of Research: Quantitative as well as Qualitative Data Collection: There are two types of data collection they are as follows 1. Primary data and 2. Secondary data
1. Primary Data:-it is collected through survey. It can be collect in following ways:-

Observation Personal interview Telephone interviews Mailing of questionnaire

2. Secondary Data:-they are those which have already been collected by someone else which has already been passed through statistical process. Sources of secondary data Internet Reports Newspapers Books, etc.

3.Research design
Research designs are concerned with turning the research question into a testing project. The best design depends on your research questions. Every design has its positive and negative sides. The research design has been considered as a "blueprint" for research, dealing with at least four problems: what questions to study, what data are relevant, what data to collect, and how to analyze the resultsResearch design can be divided into fixed and flexible research designs (Robson, 1993). Others have referred to this distinction with quantitative research designs and qualitative research designs. However, fixed designs need not be quantitative, and flexible design need not be qualitative. In fixed designs the design of the study is fixed before the main stage of data collection takes place. Fixed designs are normally theory-driven; otherwise its impossible to know in advance which variables need to be controlled and measured. Often these variables are quantitative. Flexible designs allow for more freedom during the data collection. One reason for using a flexible research design can be that the variable of interest is not quantitatively measurable, such as culture. Research Design Questionnaire

Sampling Method Simple random sampling

Data Universe 12,00,000 people (census 2006)

Sample Size 50

4.Method of Data Collection

The methods used for data collection were:

1. Field survey method 2. Personal interview technique 3. Secondary sources viz. company database,internet,books,,etc

The data collected was represented in the form of tables for drawing inferences. Quantitative techniques like averages, percentages, range, two-way tables, chi square test analysis were applied as required.

The level of preference, perception of the customers about the product and company were identified by means of questions in the questionnaire asking the respondents to rate their preferences on a scale of 1 to 7. For the representation of data various charts and graphs have been used as per requirement.

In order to make the comparative study possible, parameters were chosen and questions were designed eliciting ratings from the respondents. These ratings were tabulated and then represented by means of line diagrams. During the process of data collection, considerable amount of time was spent in explaining the purpose and the exact nature of the data required from the questionnaires filled. In addition to this, in some cases questions had to be explained to the respondents. Moreover, for some questionnaires had to be filled in as they were not so well read and literate.

5. Limitation:
Some of the difficulties and limitations faced by me during my training are as follows:

Lack of awareness among the people This is the biggest limitation found in this
sector. Most of the people are not aware about the importance and the necessity of the insurance in their life. They are not aware how useful life insurance can be for their family members if something happens to them.

Perception

of the people towards Insurance sector People still consider

insurance just as a Tax saving device. So today also there is always a rush to buy an Insurance Policy only at the end of the financial year like January, February and March making the other 9 months dry for this business.

Insurance does not give good returns Still today people think that Insurance does
not give good returns. They are not aware of the modern Unit Linked Insurance Plans which are offered by most of the Private sector players. They are still under the perception that if they take Insurance they will get only 5-6% returns which is not true nowadays. Nowadays most of the modern Unit Linked Insurance Plans gives returns which are many times more than that of bank Fixed deposits, National saving certificate, Post office deposits and Public provident fund.

Lack

of awareness about the earning opportunity in the Insurance sector

People still today are not aware about the earning opportunity that the Insurance sector gives. After the privatization of the insurance sector many private giants have entered the insurance sector. These private companies in order to beat the competition and to increase their Insurance Advisors to increase their reach to the customers are giving very high commission rates but people are not aware of that.

Increased competition Today the competition in the Insurance sector has became
very stiff. Currently there are 14 Life Insurance companies working in India including the LIC (life insurance Corporation of India). Today each and every company is trying to increase their Insurance Advisors so that they can increase their reach in the market.

This situation has created a scenario in which to recruit Life insurance Advisors and to sell life Insurance Policy has became very very difficult.