LIC stands for Late In Changing. Review on LIC Life Insurance

Life Insurance Corporation may be the oldest and the largest life insurance company in India, but it is also a slow organization, definitely not oriented to providing superior service to its customers. Going by the moves to modernize LIC has been making in the past two years, only after the entry of private insurance players into the life insurance industry, LIC can also be expanded to Late In Changing! Whatever changes LIC is making now are more than late and it will be a difficult task for LIC to not only retain its existing customers but also in attracting new customers by weaning them away from other new life insurance companies in the market today. That LIC is not a very customer oriented organization is evident from most aspects of its functioning. For one, although LIC has a range of life insurance policies, LIC agents are known to sell customers high premium policies that also fetch high commissions to the agents. Although LIC has many low premium policies that offer a high-risk coverage to the customers, such policies are neither actively promoted nor discussed by LIC or its agents. Once a customer signs up for a LIC policy, the experience a customer has dealing with LIC do not create a good impression in the mind of the customer. Many LIC branches are not very well maintained and customers should not be surprised to find unclean and poorly maintained premises when they visit branches. LIC sends premium pay notices to its customers by post and if a customer chooses to mail back the premium to the concerned LIC branch, it is not very certain that the branch will mail back a receipt in time. Customers should not be surprised to not receive receipts for payment made by post. The much touted facility of being able to pay one?s premium at any branch of LIC is also a half-promise with the electronic network frequently out of order and a branch not accepting premia payment of other branches.

The efficiency level of employees at payment counters is low and a customer has to wait for long for making a premium payment. If one thought that LIC?s new payment of premium over the Internet was a boon, the poor response customers receive after registering to make premia payment over the Internet, belies hopes of customers who wanted to use this facility. I have registered myself through my bank?s payment gateway to make such premia payments and was informed at the time of registration itself that LIC would require two (yes two!) months to activate this facility. I fail to understand why LIC would require more than even two hours to register a customer for paying premia over the Internet. I was informed that I would receive electronic intimation of premia due on my policies; however, more than three months after registration to pay premia over the internet, I have not received any notice, but have continued to received notices by post for the policies registered for premia payment over the internet! If one tries to deal with LIC employees over phone, the true face of LIC?s customer service or the total lack of it comes forth. Employees receiving phone calls at branches do not provide satisfactory replies to queries and put you on hold and sometimes just forget that they have put you on hold! I once called a LIC branch at Bangalore to request them to send me a premium payment statement for my policies and after I spoke about it to three different employees was told I could not make such a request over phone and would have to go personally to the branch to collect the statement. When I wrote a letter to the branch requesting the statement, I did not receive any reply for more than a month. When I went to the branch and asked the manager about this, he provided me the statement and requested me not to register my complaint in the complaint book at the branch! Another LIC branch at Bangalore sent me a premia default notice even after I had premia for two of my policies with them. When I sent them a photocopy of the payment receipt with a letter, I did not even receive a reply apologizing for the error. Another branch of LIC, again at Bangalore, had entered the wrong pin code in my address maintained in their records and when I wrote them pointing out this mistake, neither did they acknowledge my letter, nor did they correct their mistake. LIC, in my opinion, is very, very slow and Late In Changing and its customers have to wait till LIC improves its service standards, to receive good service that customers of any company deserve.

However, customers not yet with LIC now have many choices and should consider other life insurance companies while buying life insurance. LIC is changing and may improve their service standards, but are you willing to wait till then? Particularly, when you have so many other companies offering equally good policies with far better standards of service and responsiveness of customers. You decide.