What role does a life insurance agent play?
|
Who is a Life Insurance Agent?
Someone who is selling Life Insurance is a Life Insurance Agent. However, to be a "qualified" Life Insurance Agent, one needs to have the following properties:
- An IRDA certified license to sell Life Insurance of a specified insurance company
- Is at least 18 years old
- Is knowledgeable about the products he wishes to sell
- Has enough knowledge about financial planning and need analysis
- Be able to guide you to purchase a plan which best suits your requirements
Role of a Life Insurance Agent
What does a Life Insurance Agent do?
A life insurance agent plays a very vital role in your financial planning and helps you to purchase the life insurance policy. He does the following for the customer:
1. Help you to choose the Life Insurance Plan which best suits your requirement according to your need analysis and product review. He is the one who is informed about the product review and history and after doing a successful need analysis of your financial requirements, he is the one who will be able to guide and help you to select the product that you need to purchase and why.
2. Helps you to apply for the policy by fulfilling all the norms of the insurance company.
3. Liaisons between the insurer and prospective customer to fill up the form, file the necessary documents and do the medicals, if any. Since he is a representative of the insurer to the customer and vice versa, he is the one who is the connection between the two and hence plays a very vital role.
4. Once the policy is enforced, the Life Insurance Agent is the one who is responsible for ensuring that the renewal premiums are paid on time. This is done diligently by most sincere life insurance agents as their renewal commissions are based on the renewal premiums paid by the customers.
5. Policy servicing- address change, nominee change, fund switch, partial withdrawal, top up, loan, etc. are usually taken care by the life insurance agent because
a. They need to be in the good book of the customer so that he would recommend him to another prospective customer or take another policy from him
b. And also because they are the connection between the insurance company and the customer and represent each in front of the other!
6. Filing the claim
a. In Maturity Claim- the Life Insurance Agent needs to ensure that the cheque reaches the customer well before time so that the amount can be claimed on time.
b. In Death Claim- it is the duty of the Life Insurance Agent to help the nominee to file the claim and ensure that the death benefit be paid with least confusion and with maximum efficiency.
c. In Surrender Claim- the Life Insurance Agents helps the customer to complete the process after understanding the reason for doing the same.
Thus, a life insurance agent plays a very important role in one's life to help him select and apply for the life insurance policy. However there are certain things you need to be careful about. To know more please read "5 things to keep in mind while dealing with an Insurance Agent".
The author is the CEO of MyInsuranceClub.com, an online insurance price & features comparison portal
For more articles by Deepak Yohannan, please visit MyInsuranceClub.com
You may write to the author at Deepak@myinsuranceclub.com
- iGate sacks Phaneesh Murthy for sexual misconduct Read 303 Times
- Government exempts excise duty on indigenous goods sold at duty-free shops Read 293 Times
- Nude maid service raising eyebrows in Texas city Read 208 Times
- Gold down by Rs 50 on sluggish demand, weak global cues Read 137 Times
- Investor tips Read 132 Times
