Five years into its existence, Premium has been growing along with its principal readership – the insurance agents – and reporting on their transformation from being a faceless someone to a key player in the scheme of things. Now the magazine is ready for its onward march, braving challenges of its own and providing solutions to those faced by its readership.

Transforming yourself for a profession that changes and challenges you everyday is much like building your house. The final product is you and your professional practice.

Premium’s fifth birthday occasions a fresh look from YOU at what goals you want to achieve over the next five years.

Year-end targets may be urgent, but the insurance agency profession is going to face serious challenges in the coming financial year.

We have just gone past the one-third mark of the busiest season for selling insurance, the last quarter of the financial year that ends with the tax deadline of March 31. Only February and March are left to show your capability once again. All the best from all of us here at Premium!

A brand new year has begun, and it is fresh with hope and challenges.
During the year 2010 the fear of the downturn and loss of earnings has been destroyed and there is a feeling of new hope says K Nitya Kalyani.

Distribution is for cakes of soap and biscuits. Not insurance. It is not distributed. I only wish it could be!
And that brings me to another word I want to dwell upon. Selling.
Insurance is sold. It is gut wrenching, leg working, throat drying, soaking-in-the-rain, drying-in-the-sun, humiliating, frightening, depressing selling.
It is also exhilarating, satisfying, life-touching and soul-uplifting selling.

A festival is celebrated to mark an occasion like Narakasura’s destruction at the hands of Lord Krishna. Or, to mark the change of a season, like Makar Sankranti or New Year. Change is celebrated. Even destruction is celebrated since it gives way to creation in its place!
Insurance agents in India are familiar with change. They have been watching the old systems disintegrating and being replaced with new systems.

Spending a long weekend at breathtaking Kovalam beach in Tiruvananthapuram in the beautiful Hotel Leela, about 500 insurance agents were thinking of…… how to master the changes in their profession and stay successful!
That’s what happened at Life Underwriters Guild of India’s (LUGI) 8th Annual Convention at Tiruvananthapuram in the last week of September.

There has been more news from the regulatory side of insurance than from the companies or marketing in the last few months! A whole lot of changes have been made in key areas of interest to all, like the benefits and structure of Unit-Linked insurance policies (ULIPs). Health insurance saw an upheaval of sorts when [...]