This document discusses opportunities and challenges for Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Company in marketing rural general insurance products. It provides a brief history of the company and overview of its products. The document then outlines research objectives, problems, and methodology used to assess awareness and market potential for rural insurance among rural cooperatives in Bhavnagar city. Analysis of survey findings show most cooperatives have some insurance but primarily through Iffco-Tokio. Recommendations include improving promotions through agents and publications to increase awareness of insurance needs. The conclusion is that rural penetration requires educating opinion leaders in cooperatives to spread awareness of products.

1. OPPORTUNITY & CHALLENGES IN
RURAL GENERAL INSURANCE
PRODUCT
AT
ROYAL SUNDARAM ALLIANCE INSURANCE CO. LTD
SUBMITTED BY: PROJECT GUIDE:
CHIRAG VAGHASIYA SANDIP DHAKECHA
11SOEBA21050
MBA (SEM-III)

2. HISTORY OF ROYAL SUNDARAM
 Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Company Limited is a
leading private insurance company in India.
 It is a joint venture between Sundaram Finance, one of the
most respected non-banking financial institutions in India, and
RSA, one of the oldest and the second largest general insurer
in the UK.
 The coming together of these two financial giants offers us
innovative insurance solutions and unmatched, personalized
customer service.
 This company has witnessed many a firsts since its inception.
In 2001, it became the first private insurer in the country to be
licensed post privatization.
 It was the first to offer cashless hospitalization, segment
specific business solutions, cobranded credit cards and also
the first to introduce industry-specific proposition.
 Their product range is designed to provide extra cover to a
varied range of customers starting from the common man to
corporate conglomerates.

3. PRODUCT AND SERVICE OF
ORGANIZATION
1) Health Insurance
a) Family Health Insurance
b) Individual Health Insurance
2) Car Insurance - Car Shield
3) Travel Insurance - Travel Shield
4) Home Insurance
5) Hospital Cash Insurance
6) Accident Insurance - Accident Shield
7) Business Insurance Plans
8) Rural/ Social Insurance

4. OBJECTIVES
 To find out the awareness level for rural Insurance
Products among the rural cooperatives.
 To assess the opportunity of rural insurance products
among the rural cooperatives.
 To make an independent assessment of the
magnitude of the market potential in the light of the
competitive scenario.

5. RESEARCH PROBLEM
 How can one assess the market awareness for rural
insurance products?
 How can we tap this potential after assessing the
same , through strategic marketing of services?

6. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
 SAMPLING UNIT
The samples include co-operative banks, Sahakari Mandalis in rural areas,
milk cooperatives and similar cooperative societies.
 SAMPLE SIZE
Had taken 50 as the sample size but we could only get “proper” response
from 40 cooperatives.
 SOURCES OF DATA COLLECTION:
 Primary data:
The data was collected by using questionnaire and structured direct
interviews, which were separately conducted to know the market
awareness and market potential.
 Secondary data:
Reference books,
Articles, Newspapers
Websites
 RESEARCH LIMITATIONS:
This research is company- specific and confined only to Bhavnagar city, the
problem of generalization becomes obvious Limited sample size is taken.

7. ANALYSIS OF DATA
 Do you have any property, office, personnel insurance for
your organization?
Particulars Percentages
Yes 50
No 16.67
Not Respondents 33.33
Total 100
Interpretation:
The response given by respondents 50 are aware of property, office, personnel
insurance for in organization and 16.67 no knowing about property, office, personnel
insurance for in organization. This clearly shows that there is no proper advertisement
reach to the people.

8.  If yes name of the Company :
Company Percentages
Iffco-Tokio 66.67
Royal-Sundaram 0
New India 0
No Respondents 33.33
Total 100
Interpretation:
The chart depicts that, 66.67% of the respondents avail services of Iffco-Tokio, This is
because these cooperatives are distribution agents for IFFCO – TOKYO. All these
cooperatives have mandatorily taken insurance from IFFCO and may not change this in
future. Some cooperatives are also taking insurance for CROP however this is kept
outside the scope of study since these insurance is only offered through AIC through
state / central Gov findings.

9.  How did you come to know about insurance products
offered to you / your members
Media Percentages
Agents 41.67
News letter / Publications 0
Officer bearers 25
No Respondents 33.33
Total 100
Interpretation:
It is depicted from the chart that,
41.67% of respondents came to know through Agents.
25% of respondents came to know through reference from other cooperative
society / officer bearers.
No respondents came to know through newsletter / publications
Mostly promotion by agents was found the most effective way to reach the rural
areas

10.  Would you like to have property / other group insurance for
the cooperative :
Particulars Percentages
Yes 0
No 66.67
Not Respondents 33.33
Total 100
Interpretation:
The above chart shows that,
Most of not interested in property / other group insurance for the cooperative -
33.33% have not respondents.
The respondents (office bearers) have shared that all expenses made through
cooperatives are scrutinized by cooperatives department and their auditors.

11.  What is the total premium you are paying on behalf of the
cooperative?
Amount Percentages
More Than 5000 35
More Than 10000 21.67
More Than 20000 10
No Respondents 33.33
Total 100
Interpretation:
The above chart depicts that
35% of respondents paying premium more thenRs.5000,
21.67% of respondents paying premium more thenRs.10000 and
10% of respondents paying more than Rs.20000.
33.33% are not respondents
Major of the respondents are paying more than Rs.5000 premium.

12. RECOMMENDATIONS
 There is a necessity to undertake promotions by the Insurance
Company through Agents, Cooperative publications, develop strong
networking among cooperative office bearers & spread awareness on
different insurance for rural cooperative sector as well as the need to
have their cooperative units insured.
 Sales team including agents should take up special campaigns round
the year to develop good relationship within the sector as well as
provide information on various products available to them within the
sector.
 ROYAL SUNDARAM is concentrating only in urban / semi-urban areas -
it should concentrate on rural areas too.
 As it was found that customers who are insured are insured with IFFCO
Tokyo. As most of the agricultural cooperatives buy fertilizer from IFFCO
(which is also a cooperative org), IFFCO TOKYO has leveraged this
advantage to distribute their rural products. Royal Sundaram should also
try and rope in similar distribution partners to improve reach of their rural
insurance products

13. CONCLUSION
 Cooperative societies are indifferent towards insurance needs as a
whole
 Some of the office bearers in few cooperatives who have higher
insurance awareness & in such cooperatives there is some or the
other insurance cover for property and members
 An insurer who aims at higher penetration in this insurance needs to
interact strongly with these set of people who are “opinion builders” to
spread awareness as the first step
 The scope of study w as limited to cooperative sector as initial
research found that there are generally very few efficient distribution
channels except cooperative societies with the required reach in rural
segment
 The overall small ticket size and hence lower remuneration does not
make it an attractive proposition by any other individual to distribute
general insurance products based out of small villages.

14.  Cooperative societies and banks have advantage of getting
volumes through over the counter selling & cross selling and also
have the “trust” advantage which other intermediaries will have to
build separately. Hence this is the best suitable channel for
distribution of insurance products.
 It is found that IFFCO Tokyo due to its Cooperative promoters, have
been able to suitably leverage this channel to do substantial rural
business in Bhavnagar market
 I had collected data of quiet a number of rural cooperatives but due
to the constraint of time and geographical spread we could take up
field survey in limited number of cooperative only. Telephonic
surveys were not found very effective in getting the details.

15. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 BOOKS AND MAGAZINES
Essentials of Marketing – Reddy and Appaniah
Marketing Management – Phillip Kotler
Business World and Money Regulator.
 NEWS PAPERS
The Times of India
The Business Standards
 INTERNET
www.google.com
www.royalsundaram.in
www.irda-india.org

16. THANK YOU