Marketing for Actuaries (LIMRA) - Chapter III - MARKET RESEARCH
Overview
- conducting surveys to analyse
- sales and persistency trends
- census demographics and econ stats to sales data to id mkt-potential
- developing conservation programs
- studying profiles of buyers and products purchases
- examining trends in buying and paying behavior
- exploring motivations invovled in various purchases
- conducted both at company and industry level
- study both internal ins environment and external environment
- external environ - demographic,economic, regulatory, cultural, technical trends that may affect ins mkts
- sources: fed govt agencies, private industry, trade orgs, professional assoc & vendors
- conducted at industry leve by various ins fin services trade orgs and prof ins orgs
- helps senior management in
- setting company objectives
- monitoring goals established by such objectives
Market Surveys
- montior sales activites and their persistency
- tracked by several measures including product lines and dist systems
- results are used
- strategic planning process
- establish mkt share goals adn monitor such goals
- as performance criteria
- competitive intelligence process
- diagnose strengths adn weknesses
- mkt segmentation purposes
- motivational purposes
- measure of the mktg effectiveness of the ins industry
- problem identification
Sales Surveys (LIMRA primarily)
- Individual Life
- qtrly and ytd indiv life sales performance trends by dist channel
- annualized new premium, face amt, # pols, avg size pol, prems/pol, prem/$1m
- allows cos to compare results w/ others
- WL/Term/UL/VUL
- Individual Annuities
- qtrly sales trends by product type
- deposits for variabel adn fixes annuites, qual/nonqual, single prem/periodic prem
- Individual Health
- DI - qtrly indiv DI sales by annlzd prem and # pols
- LTC - new issues and trends in inforce
- Indiv Health - annlzd prem & pols - medicare supplement, acc, hospitalization, major med, comprehensive
- Buyer Study
- Indiv life sales observed for trends in variety of product and buyer characteristics
- provides overall picture of industry
- hleps w/ design of new products
Other Market Data
- helpful to have info on competition w/ mkt share
- analyse using primary (internal company) data along w/ secondary data
- used to estimate expected growth rates
- sources fo seconday data:
- US Census Bureau - population and household counts, estimates and projections by area
- Bureau of Economic Analysis - aggregate personal and per capita income for areas & income proj
- Bureau of labor Stats - unemployment stats adn workforce size
- Nat'l Assoc Realtors - housing starts and sales and home values
- Persistency Studies
- periodic studies for indiv def ann, indiv life, indiv DI
- Consumer adn Field Force Surveys
- mostly mktg info from
- analysis of internal operating stats
- policyholder records
- trade assoc figures compiled across groups of cos
- more and more info from own records
- move from policy records to client records (householding)
- focus groups can help w/ consumer info
- industry studies needed for avg ins holding and similar data
- Public in General
- ACLI surveys American Public
- Sub-Population of the General Public
- survey of widows/people who recently bought through a bank/etc
- survey ow policyowners
- cross section or subgroup such as recently serviced or recently terminated
- Field Force
- evaluating compensation systems, portfolio, policyowner service, field-HO communication, quality of agent training
- wants & needs of public - at least agents perception
- field survey vs field advisory council
- field survey represents all agents, not just most vocal/top producers
- field morale improved if ask all
- Caveats
- surveys can mislead - using info for purpose other than intended
- surveys are an "art" and trick to get set up adn utilized properly
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Copyright © 2004 Steve Welander.
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