How to pursue a career as an Insurance Agent?

🧑‍💼Who is an Insurance Agent?

Insurance Agent is a person or organisation licenced by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, (IRDAI) to act as an intermediary between an insurance company and its clients. They are trained professionals and requires a licence and training from IRDA. Equipped with adequate knowledge on insurance subject matters and with his/her persuasive attitude and marketing skill, they address customers' insurance needs and generate revenue for companies by selling insurance policies.

📂Types of Insurance Agent:

There are usually three types of Insurance Agent operating in India:

• Independent Insurance Agent – There are 3 categories here –
  i. Life Insurance Agent,
  ii. General Insurance Agent and
  iii. Composite Insurance Agent – (who works both life and General Insurance)
• Captive Insurance Agent – Employed by Insurance Company
• Micro Finance Insurance Agents – Works in Rural Sector

An Independent Insurance Agent, works like a consultant and may be engaged with more than one insurer. They make work for full-time basis or part-time basis.

Captive Insurance Agent works for only one insurance company who have appointed as an employee and they work as in-house agent for the insurance company.

Micro Finance Insurance Agent, works in rural sectors and they are the key driver that facilitates popularisation and penetration of insurance produce to rural sectors. They are also key participant who promote Government sponsored insurance programmes.

🎓Knowledge and Skill Required:

Most agents usually specialize in a certain type of insurance, such as Life, health, property, disability, or casualty. Selling an insurance product is not a simple sales job. An Agent needs to have specialised knowledge of various type of insurance products and he is responsible in advising clients the most suitable insurance solutions for them. As such selling insurance is a very specific job that requires an Agent to be a trusted partner to his/her clients so as to build trust and rapport with the clients.

Apart from knowledge of insurance products, an Agent is also expected to have reasonable knowledge of finance, investment and marketing.

🤝Soft Skill

All good insurance agents need to have both Interpersonal Skills and Professional Skills. Soft skill requires of an Insurance Agent are:

Insurance operates in a dynamic environment. Agents need to be up to date about changes in the market.

🏢Expected Employer:

Many insurance agents work for multiple insurance agencies or brokers, but some insurance agents work for one specific insurance company. Also, some insurance agent works as captive insurance Agent. A captive insurance agent is one who is employed by an insurance company as its in-house employee. For example, LIC of India is the largest employer of Captive Insurance agent in India. Major employer in India are LIC, HDFC, ICICI Lombard, SBI Life etc.

Independent Insurance agents are those who works for one or more insurance companies as its agent on commission basis.

🌍Scope

The insurance market has historically relied on insurance agents for distribution of insurance products. As per the IRDAI Annual Report, insurance agents continue to be the major source of new business for the individual category, i.e for policies taken by individuals, with a 58.14% premium contribution to new business. A career in insurance sector thus promises safe and numerous work options. Anyone can work in the insurance industry and find a satisfying job depending on their skills and certifications.

Working as an Insurance Agent has many advantages, including flexibility in working hours, side income, a high commission earning potential and the opportunity to work in an ever-changing industry where you can develop key skills for various roles in insurance.

As an independent Agent, you can be your own boss, work for yourself, select your customers, and earn money without needing initial capital.

📋Typical Job Profile:

The scope of work includes preparing new policies, renewing existing policies, enquiring about policies, and delivering them to customers. A typical job profile of an Insurance Agent may include:

• Developing marketing strategies and promote all types of new insurance contracts or suggest additions/changes to existing ones
• Breeding productive relationships to create a pool of prospective clients from various sources by networking, cold calling, using referrals etc.
• Evaluating business or individual customers’ needs and financial status and proposing protection plans that meet their criteria

Expected Salary:

Most Independent insurance agents earn money from commissions as a result of selling insurance. However, there are other breed of insurance agent, called Captive Insurance Agents earn a salary and also earn commission as they build a book of business. Captive agents who work for a single company often receive a commission of the value of the policies they sell apart from fixed salary.

The average LIC agent monthly salary varies from ₹39,200/- to ₹67,000/-.

Qualification required:

Apart from the primary qualification as stated above (minimum 10+2 pass and minimum 18 years old), an insurance agents require a valid licence to practise from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI). And to obtain such licence, an individual need to pass through following:-

Examination:

• Pass IRDA IC 38 Pre recruitment qualification exam, conducted by Insurance Institute of India.

Training:

• Once you pass the IC-38 Exam, you should complete 50 hours of training from an IRDA approved training institution (Insurance Institute of India) to act as Life or General Insurance agent. In case of Candidates who are seeking license for the first time to act as composite (i.e. Life & General) insurance agent has to complete 75 hours of training.

Try Free IC-38 Mock Test

How to pursue the Course:

Cost:

The total cost for obtaining qualification to operate Insurance Agent will be as low as Rs. 1,000.

Course materials

The Course material is designed by Insurance Institute of India on behalf of IDRAI and provides academic inputs for students appearing for the examinations. Insurance Institute of India, has developed this course based on the syllabus prescribed by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).

The course is structured as four sections.

(1) Overview a Common section that covers Insurance Principles, Legal Principles and Regulatory matters that Insurance agents need to know. Separate sections are provided for those aspiring to become

(1) Life Insurance Agents-covers Life Insurance business exclusively

(2) General Insurance Agents and -Covers all other type of insurance including health, accident, property, marine, industry, public liability, transportation etc.

(3) Health Insurance Agents.-Covers Health and accidental insurance

The Course material is divided in total 10 Chapters as below:

C-01 Introduction to Insurance

C-02 Core Elements of Insurance

C-03 Principles of Insurance

C-04 Features of Insurance Contracts

C-05 Underwriting and Rating

C-06 Claims Processing

C-07 Documentation

C-08 Customer Service

C-09 Grievance Redressal Mechanism

C-10 Regulatory Aspects for Insurance Agents

The Course material is available for free and can be downloaded from the Institute’s website: https://www.insuranceinstituteofindia.com

The course provides basic knowledge of Life, General and Health insurance to enable agents in the respective line of business to understand and appreciate their professional career in the right perspective.

We have provided free access to more than 600 Multi Choice Questions (MCQ) together with Answers absolutely free to all prospective students. You can carry out Mock Test of all those questions at your convenience. The Mock Test will help in revising what you have learnt and pass through the IC-38 Exam.

Try Free IC-38 Mock Test

Exam Format:

The exam format is Objective Type Questions (Multi Choice Questions (MCQ) with 4 options given for each question, from which you have to identify the correct option. There is no Negative marking. Pass mark for Examination is 35%, which means that you have score 18 correct marks. However, even if you score 17 marks, 1 mark will be granted as grace mark that will qualify you for the exam.

How to register for the Exam

• Registration: Log on to the insurer’s website. Seek out the insurance agent application, and submit basic details as required.
• Training: Next, you will be required to complete the basic training that has been mandated by the IRDAI, which can be online or offline. This training typically takes 50 hours and can easily be completed within one to two weeks. After completion, the applicant will be provided with a certificate.
• IC-38 Exam: Once the training is complete, the applicant must sit through a pre-licensing exam in order to qualify for this training.
• License: Once the exam is passed, IRDAI will award a candidate of license to practice as a certified insurance agent. The candidate can start to work as Insurance Agent immediately.

Are Insurance Agent jobs confined only to the insurance sector?

Both Yes and No.

The job as an Insurance Agent is confined only to the insurance sector however, not the Agent himself.

When you pursue as insurance agent as an independent agent. you can do the agency business as a part-time job. This profession is best suitable for work from home and for people who have good networking skills, Like example retired employee, housewife etc. This profession can be combined with other profession like Investment Consultants, financial advisors, portfolio managers, loan marketing, property agent, tax consultant etc.

Working as an Insurance Agent has many advantages, including flexibility in working hours, side income, a high commission earning potential and the opportunity to work in an ever-growing industry where you can develop key skills for various roles in insurance. As an independent Agent, you can be your own boss, work for yourself, select your customers, and earn money and no major initial investment is required. Your main investment is your skill sets, networking abilities and time management.

What is the difference between insurance Agent and Insurance Broker?

Both Insurance agent and insurance Broker are intermediaries that traditionally help in marketing Insurance products and are wrongly assumed to be the same. However, there are a few lines of difference between the two.

An insurance broker is a professional who represents customers, ensuring they get the best insurance policy suited to their needs. Where as, an insurance agent usually represent an Insurance company as he sells the products of the insurance company to customers for a commission. As the insurance agents represents an insurance company they have much higher authorities granted by the insurer for example, they can bind a sale transaction for and on behalf of insurer or can sign and issue a policy documents. A broker can not do that.

However, it is to be noted that the insurance agent represents only the insurance company. And since the agent represents the company, he/she has the right to complete insurance sales transactions. Insurance brokers do not have this right; instead, they will have to hand over the account to the insurance agent or to the company itself.

An Insurance Broker is more interested in finding out the needs and options for his/her clients and then offer a host of options from across a number of Insurance companies as per client’s requirements.