Customer Perception of Brand LIC : An Empirical Investigation

The state sponsored Life Insurance Corporation (hereinafter referred to as LIC) of India was the sole player in the Indian life insurance market before 2000. With the entry of private players, LIC has lost considerable market share to private players although both market size and insurance premia, are on the rise. In India life insurance products were/are bought more as investments for tax savings rather than risk protection. The brand preference in this category has never been explored in depth. It has been largely assumed that life insurance is an unsought product and customer satisfaction a ‘paradox'. The proposition that has been examined is that customer satisfaction can provide business opportunities in this under penetrated market. It can be a vehicle for identifying new avenues for cross selling, upselling and referrals. It also attempts to identify the dimensions of service quality which are important to a customer. SERVQUAL scale was used to discern the different dimensions of service quality and mean scores were used to find out if there is any gap between customer expectations and perceptions. Primary research was used to collect data on RATER scale among LIC customers in Delhi