On more than ten years after they launched unit-linked policies (which also include an investment component, in addition to the insurance) on the Romanian market, the Dutch at ING Asigurari de Viata (ING Life Insurance) are preparing to radically simplify their offer. ”We are revising some of the products in view of reducing their price, which also entails a simplification,” Cornelia Coman, general manager of the insurer that holds around a third of the market, told BUSINESS Magazin.
The simplification occurs in terms of the product (the client can choose only from a few types of benefits, insured sums or duration of the contract) or in terms of the risk assessment process and sale, where the ”risk assessment questionnaire is simplified”. Coman has noticed, as have other players in the life insurance industry, that Romanians are increasingly hard to persuade to trust sophisticated financial products, such as life insurance linked to investment funds, but not only. A lack of confidence in financial institutions can be noticed, she says.
This trend and the clients being less and less willing to spend a lot on products that are not absolutely necessary have been quick to produce effects on the insurance market: ”Profitability of sophisticated products will be very low this year,” says Sanziana Maioreanu, general manager of Signal Iduna, one of the players which have recently entered the market. So, after several years of trying to persuade clients to buy increasingly complex insurance products, companies now find themselves having to adapt as they go along. It is not only their business plan that changes (strongly affected by the consequences of the economic crisis), but also the product structure and the sales structure.
”We have to focus on mass needs, which remain in the area of traditional products,” says Frans van der Ent, CEO of Eureko, leader of the life insurance market. According to beginning-ofthe- year plans, increasingly more companies will, this year at least, adopt the policy of simple, easy to understand, and, not least, cheaper products.
Traducere de Loredana Fratila-Cristescu si Daniela Stoican
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