WCRC India’s Inspirational Leader 2018-2019: Manoj Kumar Jain, Managing Director, Shriram Life Insurance 

Shriram Life Insurance Company is a part of Chennai headquartered Shriram Group. Shriram Life follows Shriram group philosophy of working in the Aam Aadmi (Common Man) the financial Inclusion customer segment. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Conversation with Manoj Kumar Jain, Managing Director, Shriram Life Insurance

The Key Differentiators

The key differentiator of our brand offering is that we work with lower & middle income group customers. This is evident from the fact that the average premium per policy for Shriram Life is around Rs.18000 to Rs.20,000 as against the private life insurance industry average of Rs.50,000/- plus.

AS a business model, in life insurance business Shriram Life has focused on the Tier 2, Tier 3 cities and has much broader network of branches Pan India.  In states like Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Shriram Life has a strong network of branches and Mr Manoj Jain played a key role in developing the network of distribution in these states, starting from the scratch.

As measured according the IRDAI regulatory provision, Shriram life has more than 60% of the business coming from the designated rural areas during the year 2016-17. Shriram Life has been consistently sourcing more than 50% of the business from Non-urban markets

Individual Business –Rural %

	Rural NOP	Total NOP	Rural %
14-15	106611	232431	46%
15-16	219550	374321	59%
16-17	157521	262680	60%
17-18	135632	247,057	55%

While other life insurance companies chased rural business to meet up with the regulatory requirement, Shriram Life has adopted non-urban focus as a business model

 

1. 

   Manoj Kumar Jain, Managing Director, Shriram Life Insurance

1. Focus is on Aam Aadmi ( Common Man) customer segment
2. Most of the customers are from business, SME and unorganized business community segment
3. Majority of the customers fall in the income band of Rs.2 lakhs to Rs. 6 lakhs
4. SLIC products, Process and service delivery mechanism are tuned to map to the requirements of this customer segment
5. Niche customer segment – Non Urban and Rural market customers – Financial inclusion segment
6. Average premium –SLIC average premium is Rs.18,000 as against private industry average of Rs.53000/-
7. Product and process simplification. – Simple, easy to brief, avoidance of missale , guarantee return products
8. Simplified proposal forms – Very simple proposal forms with 4 pages as against the industry average of 8 to 9 pages
9. Customer segments include – Micro Finance customers, Truck Driver segment, SME borrowers, Affordable Housing customers

 

 

What are your future plans for the brand?

India is a grossly underinsured Market. As per IRDAI, Insurance penetration in India is 3.49% (2016) as against the global average of 6.28%.   Moreover as a country India has a large proportion of the population living in Non-Urban and rural areas. Although the hinterlands of India offers huge potential for life insurance, it also comes along with the unique challenges of reaching out and cost of distribution

At Shriram life, we continue to work in the Aam Aadmi segment.  We plan to expand our reach to block and Tehsil levels. We will continue to invest in technology to serve the common man.   Our current products and services are customised for the benefit of common man.

What according to you are the key traits of a successful leader?

Leadership is all about having an uncompromising vision, building a passionate likely mind team, communicating the vision and close monitoring of execution.   Need to focus on long term goals without losing sight on the short term milestones.

 

What has been your driving force or philosophy in life?

Passion to create a sustainable, scalable business has been my passion.  Involved in startup of operations in all my assignments.  The energy and enthusiasm associated with starting from scratch, setting the vision, building a performing team & driving for delivery keeps me going and in this process help me develop several leaders with similar passion along the way. I believe in giving full freedom and empowerment, so that I always gets the best out of my team.

 

How do you define success and how do you measure up to your own definition?

 

Delivering value to all my stakeholders like Customers, employees & the shareholders, as long as I am able to keep a fine balance and bring smile on their faces, then success is just a buy product. Customer first approach, employees and their family members should feel proud to work with Shriram and connect with the society as I firmly believe that no business can sustain unless you do not a social angle to it.

Your perception of an empowered society. 

 

Financial independence means a lot to the family and society.  We, at Life insurance industry, aim to provide the financial support to the family, in the event of death of the breadwinner.  Benefits of a life Insurance product will help the life assured or his family financially secure and  be independent.

Life Insurance products addresses two risks in human life. I.e. 1) Risk of Early Death, death of the breadwinner leading to financial turbulence in the family 2) Risk of Living Longer, risk of living beyond the income earning years.

India as a country is highly under insured in both the risk products as well as pension products. We will see a large population beyond the age of 55 in the next 30 years and the current youngsters need to start providing for their old age.

We at Shriram Life believe in working for the mass market, common man segment living in non-urban and rural markets  by providing him with the right products and services near his place.

 

One thing you have to let go off as an entrepreneur/leader?

 

Life Insurance selling in India is not a pull products, it has to be sold , thus require lot of patience in dealing with the Sales team as it takes a longer time to build sustainable business, thus some time you have to have a fair balance between short term goal and long term sustainable business.

 

How do you see the market 5 years down the line?

Indian Life insurance market will continue to grow and we expect the industry to grow at a CAGR of not less than 20% in the coming 5 years.  There is a huge potential. We firmly believe technology will be a great enabler in both increasing our reach and reducing our cost of acquisition, in addition to making it convenient for the customers.  Mobility based business processing including new business acquisitions, customer servicing will become a norm and can help in both deeper and broader penetration of life insurance products

 

Would you rather be respected or feared and why?

 

At Shriram group, we foster our employees as entrepreneurs by providing them with adequate freedom with appropriate vision statement.  Many of the current leaders have grown within the group.   There is a lot of respect for individuals and we believe every individual has a strength and can contribute significantly in building the enterprise, if the ambience is free, transparent and respectful.

 

Give me one word that describes you the best

 

Task Oriented People’s leader