A STUDY ON AWARENESS OF STAR HEALTH POLICY ON LIC AMONG CUSTOMERS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO COIMBATORE

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1 A STUDY ON AWARENESS OF STAR HEALTH POLICY ON LIC AMONG CUSTOMERS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO COIMBATORE [1] Dr. S.KAMALAVENI [2] B.SUGANYA [1] Assistant professor, Department of Commerce Dr.N.G.P Arts and Science College (Autonomous), Coimbatore [2] Research Scholar, Department of Commerce Dr.N.G.P Arts and Science College (Autonomous), Coimbatore ABSTRACT The project entitled A STUDY ON AWARENESS OF STAR HEALTH POLICY AMONG CUSTOMERS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO COIMBATORE is used to analyze the star health insurance brand awareness level among consumers and it also highlights the effectiveness of the different advertising or promotional tools used for the purpose. A consumer is one who buys health insurance by paying its price for consumption. No business activities move in the country without the presence of consumer. Brand awareness is the consumers ability to recognize or recall (identify) the brand within a given product category in sufficient detail to make a purchase decision. This also means that the consumers can propose, recommend, choose, or use the brand. The objectives of most advertising campaign are to create and maintain brand preference. The first step is to make potential consumers aware of a brands existence. One of the prominent goals of any business should be to build brand image and awareness of its product, albeit in as cost effective manner as possible. Consumer tends to make purchasing decision based on peer recommendation and direct experience, as well traditional advertising methods. The project aims towards increasing the brand awareness since its one of the effective tool to effect the final purchase decision and the volume of sales. I had used the topic to find out or measure the brand awareness level among the customers and the ways to increase its awareness. The analysis was done with the help of the data collected through questionnaire taking the sample size of 124 in an around Coimbatore. As the brand awareness is directly associated with promotion strategy taken by the company its effectiveness is evaluated and the steps to increase the awareness level of the customers are considered. The collected data is analyzed using analytical tools like simple percentage, rank correlation and chisquare test. As per the findings, suggestions are given to the company to take initiation to fulfill the consumer needs. Keywords: - Brand awareness, customer preference and health insurance sectors. BRAND AWARENESS INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY Brand awareness is the probability that consumers are familiar about the life and availability of the product. It is the degree to which consumers precisely associate the brand with the specific product. It is measured as ratio of niche market that has former knowledge of brand. Brand awareness includes both brand recognition as well as brand recall. Brand recognition is the ability of consumer to recognize prior knowledge of brand when they are asked questions about that brand or when they are shown that specific brand, i.e., the consumers can clearly differentiate the brand as having being earlier noticed or heard. While brand recall is the potential of customer to recover a brand from his memory when given the product class/category, needs satisfied by that category or buying scenario as a signal. In other words, it refers that consumers should correctly recover brand from the memory when given a clue or he can recall the specific brand when the product category is mentioned. It is generally 9

2 easier to recognize a brand rather than recall it from the memory. Brand awareness is improved to the extent to which brand names are selected that is simple and easy to pronounce or spell; known and expressive; and unique as well as distinct. Assuming target consumers know the product, how do they feel about it? Once the potential buyers knew about the Infiniti, Nissan s marketers wanted to move them through successively stronger stages of feelings towards the bike. And also the awareness is the first step to the communication objectives. So, awareness is having the most preference in the communication process. Without awareness there is no communication. With the awareness of the different brands only, customers can make correct decision about their needs. Because, different peoples having the different needs. So, with the awareness of the different brands can make the correct solution for the customers Customer satisfaction is the individual s perception of the performance of the product or service in relation to his or her expectations. Customers will have drastically different expectations, of an expensive. The concept of customer satisfaction is a function of customer expectations. The overall objectives of providing value to customers continuously and more effectively than the competition is to have and to retain highly satisfied. Brand awareness is the potential capacity that a consumer recognizes or recall the name of the brand of a certain category of a product. Thus, brand awareness is an exercise of identification of the brand name under different conditions and, therefore, the probability of a brand name coming to the consumer and the facility with which this happens. HEALTH INSURANCE How many accident you need to realize that you need Health Cover? It takes just one visit to a hospital to make us realize how vulnerable we are, every passing second. For the rich as well as poor, male as well as female and young as well as old, being diagnosed with an illness and having the need to be hospitalized can be a tough ordeal. Heart problems, diabetes, stroke, renal failure, cancer the list of lifestyle diseases just seem to get longer and more common these days. While the well-to-do segment of the population both in rural & urban areas have acceptability and affordability towards medical care, at the same time cannot be said about the people who belong to poor segment of the society. It is well known that more than 75% of the population utilizes private sectors for medical care unfortunately medical care becoming costlier day by day and it has become almost out of reach of the poor people. Health insurance is a form of group insurance, where individuals pay premiums or taxes in order to help protect themselves from high or unexpected healthcare expenses. Health insurance works by estimating the overall "risk" of healthcare expenses and developing a routine finance structure (such as a monthly premium, or annual tax) that will ensure that money is available to pay for the healthcare benefits specified in the insurance agreement. The healthcare benefit is administered by a central organization, which is most often either a government agency, or a private or not-for-profit entity operating a health plan Star Health & Allied Insurance Company Profile Founded in 2006, Star Health and Allied Insurance is a standalone health insurer headquartered in Chennai, India. Star Health and Allied Insurance is a joint venture between Indian venture capitalist firms- Star Health Investments, ICICI Venture, Sequoia Capital and foreign investors which include Oman Insurance Company- Middle East insurance solution provider and ETA Ascon Group- UAE contracting firm. Health Insurance provides comprehensive cover and takes care of medical expenses in case the policyholder is hospitalized due to illness. Star Health has wide portfolio of health insurance plans which include Star Unique Health, Star Wedding Gift, Medi Classic, Diabetes Safe, Family Health Optima, Senior Citizen Red Carpet, Super Surplus, Star Netplus, Star Health Gain and Star Criticare Plus. Star Health Red Carpet has been specially designed for senior citizens aged between years and provides Sum Assured with maximum limit of Rs 5 lacs. Travel Insurance: The policy provides cover for hospitalization and other travel related eventuality that could happen while travelling abroad. Star Health travel insurance is available for family, students and corporate. Accident Cover: In case policyholder is injured in accident, compensation is provided to the concerned person. History Star Health and Allied Insurance Co. is a joint venture formed by Oman Insurance Company, Essa Abdullah Al Ghurair from the prominent Al Ghurair family and Tamil Muslim entrepreneurs. Established in 2006, Star Health is an insurance company with business interest in health insurance alone. SCOPE OF THE STUDY The scope of this study is to access and evaluate various aspects of the consumer s awareness and their preferences to Star health insurance in the market. To know about the factors and sales promotions types that influences the consumer s decision to choose a Star health insurance. 10

3 To know about the attributes that a consumers look for in a Star health insurance. So, scope of this study is to achieve customer satisfaction because customer satisfaction and quality maintenance is company s primary objective. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY To analyze the Star health insurance brand awareness among the consumers. To identify and analyze the factor influencing to choose Star health insurance. To identify the level of satisfaction of Star health insurance among customers. To offer suggestions from the findings of the study. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Introduction Review of literature is necessary as it familiarizes the researcher with concepts and conclusions already evolved by earlier analysts. It also enables the present researcher to measure the need for future study and to frame appropriate objectives for the proposed evaluation. Since the proposed study is to analyses the gap between expectations and perceptions in service quality, the previous studies made in this area of research are briefly reviewed. It also includes the opinions expressed by various authors in leading articles, journals and books. THEORATICAL PRESPECTIVE Brand awareness is the potential capacity that a consumer recognizes or recall the name of the brand of a certain category of a product. Thus, brand awareness is an exercise of identification of the brand name under different conditions and, therefore, the probability of a brand name coming to the consumer and the facility with which this happens. Awareness essentially means that customers know about the existence of the brand, and also recall what categories the brand is in. The lowest level of awareness is when the customers have to be reminded about the existence of the brand name, and its being a part of the category. Thereafter is the stage of aided recall, i.e., upon the mention of the category, the customer can recognize the company s brand from among a list of brands. Then is the stage of unaided recall, where in a customer mentions the company s brand among a list of brands in the category. The highest level of awareness is when the first brand that the customer can recall upon the mention of the product category is the company s brand. This is called top-of-mind recall. (Arunkumar & N Meenakshi,2006). Nitin Joshi1, D. P. Mishra (2011) 1 The aim of the study is to understand the behavior of the customer in the State of Maharashtra which is one of the most developed states of India. The study was bikeried out to understand the customer awareness on health insurance in india. The objective of the study is to understand the awareness levels and create awareness of the health insurance awareness among customers.five hundred respondents have been asked to fill in a questionnaire. U. Thiripurasundari (2011) 2 Brand Equity is the added value endowed by the brand to the Product. Although the idea of using a name or a symbol to enhance a product s value has been knownity hastogainedmarketers renewed interest in recent years. The objectives of the study were to analyse the importance of various factors like brand knowledge, brand preference, brand loyalty, brand application etc. in bike market in coimbatore. From the five factors, brand application factor has been rated as the most important factor in bike industry. Prof. Pallawi B. Sangode (2011) 3 This research paper is based on the findings of comparative study of service quality of various health insurance companies in Nagpur. Service quality is a fundamental aspect of service provision, and this is especially the case with coverage amount and service during claim. The questionnaire was a self-completion questionnaire consisting of 26 questions. Choudhuri (2014) 4 explained that as a social being customers are not only relationally attached with the different kinds of people in their daily life but also directly related with their service provider s in different ways. Empirical studies indicated that in the modern age of the society, the technology savvy customers awareness about the several existing life insurance products depends on a number of factors where over times these factors varies situation wise, culture wise, nation wise, sector wise as well as industry wise. Considering awareness scenario of the customers of Life Insurance Corporation of India. Narendar and Sampath (2016) 5 observed that the level of awareness towards the rights and duties regarding insurance is negligible. The study tries to understand the awareness of the people towards the rights and duties towards life insurance products after the privatization of the insurance sector with special reference to Indian insurance sector. To actually understand this, a primary research was conducted to find out the level of awareness towards the rights and duties of the policy holders across demographic profiles and about the level of awareness towards life insurance policies prevailing in the Indian market. The study totally concentrates on the individual behavior, attitudes and also crating the awareness regarding their contribution on Indian insurance sector. 11

4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY RESEARCH A research design is the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevant to the research purpose with economy in procedure. Decisions regarding what, where, when, how much, by what means concerning an inquiry or a research study constitute a research design. METHODOLOGY OF DATA COLLECTION Primary data The data was collected through a questionnaire. The questions were in the form of multiple choices. The survey was adopted and the information was collected from 124 respondents. Secondary data The data that already exists is called as secondary data. This data is collected before hand by others. The sources are books, magazines, journals, and any published. For the present study the secondary source are also used. SAMPLING In this study the researcher used convenience sampling. The sample was selected according to the convenience of the researcher. SAMPLE SIZE In this study the researchers sample size is 124. ANALYSIS OF TOOLS: It is carried out in the following ways. Simple percentage method Rank correlation Chi-Square method SIMPLE PERCENTAGE METHOD In this method, based on the opinion of the respondents percentage is calculated for the respective scale of each factor. Formula for simple percentage method: Number of Respondents replied Simple percentage method = x 100 Total no of Respondents CHI-SQUARE TEST A chi-square test is a statistical test commonly used for testing independence and goodness of fit. Testing independence determines whether two or more observations across two populations are dependent on each other (that is, whether one variable helps to estimate the other). Formula for chi-square test: 12

5 DATA ANALYSIS & PERCENTAGE TABLE NO: 1 AGE OF THE RESPONDENTS Age No. of respondents Percentage Below 20years years years Above 60 years The above table reveals that 21% of the respondents are Below 20years, 29% of the respondents are years, 30% of the respondents are years and 19% of the respondents are Above 60 years TABLE NO : 2 AWARENESS OF STAR HEALTH INSURANCE Factors No. of respondents Percentage Yes No The above table reveals that 60% of the respondents are aware of star health and 40% of the respondents are not aware of star health insurance. CHART NO 2 AWARENESS OF STAR HEALTH INSURANCE 80% 60% 40% Percentage 60% 40% 20% 0% Yes No 13

6 TABLE NO : 3 SOURCE OF AWARENESS Factors No.of respondents Percentage Television Newspaper Internet Company The above table reveals that 18% respondents aware by television, 12% respondents aware by newspaper, 48% respondents aware by internet, and 21% of the respondents aware by company. TABLE NO : 4 OWNED HEALTH INSURANCE POLICY TYPE Factors No. of respondents Percentage Individual Family Parents The above table reveals that 17% respondents having individual health policy, 41% respondents having family policy and 41% respondents having parents policy. TABLE NO : 5 COVERAGE OF SUM INSURED Factors No. of respondents Percentage Below Above The above table reveals that 22% respondents coverage is below 50000, 32% respondents coverage is ,27% respondents coverage is , and 18% of the respondents coverage is above

7 TABLE NO : 6 PREMIUM CHARGES OF INSURANCE POLICY Factors No. of respondents Percentage Very high Normal Low Very low The above table reveals that 42% respondents thinks very high, 18% of the respondents thinks normal, 29% respondents thinks low and 10% of the respondents thinks very low. TABLE NO :7 KNOWN HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY Education No. of respondents Percentage Star health Life Insurance Tata AIG Star Health Insurance Others The above table reveals that 18% respondents knows Star health lif insurance, 12% respondents knows Tata AIG, 48% respondents knows about star health insurance and 21% of the respondents knows other policies. CHART NO : 2 KNOWN HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY 60% 50% 48% Percentage 40% 30% 20% 10% 18% 12% 21% 0% ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Tata AIG Star Health Insurance Others 15

8 TABLE No: 8 CUSTOMER S LEVEL OF SATISFACTION S.NO FACTORS Highly satisfied Satisfied Neutral Not satisfied Total 1 Coverage of sum insured 21% 38% 28% 13% 100% 2 Premium charges 38% 41% 10% 11% 100% 3 Claim settlement procedure 39% 21% 32% 8% 100% 4 Consumer care and support 10% 64% 16% 10% 100% Interpretation: On an average 27% of the respondents are highly satisfied, 41% of the respondents are satisfied, 22% of the respondents are neutral and 11% of the respondents are not satisfied. Majority of the respondents are satisfied. CHI-SQUARE TEST TABLE NO :1 CHI-SQUARE TEST TO FIND THE SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WISH TO TAKE LOW PREMIUM POLICIES WITH LIMITED BENEFITS AND STAR HEALTH INSURANCE Ho: There is no significant relationship between wish to take low premium policies and star health insurance H1: There is significant relationship between wish to take low premium policies and star health insurance CHI SQUARE FOR NATURE OF FAMILY AND STAR HEALTH INSURANCE O i E i (O i - E i ) 2 χ 2 = (O i - E i ) 2 / E i CALCULATION Table value (n 1), (2 1) = 1 degrees of freedom at 0.5 % confidence level is χ 2 = calc χ 2 = table χ 2 >χ 2 calctable Therefore Ho is rejected. 16

9 There is significant relationship between wish to take low premium policies with limited benefits and star health insurance TABLE NO: CHI-SQUARE TEST TO FIND THE SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SATISFACTION WITH CONSUMER CARE AND SUPPORT AND STAR HEALTH INSURANCE Ho: There is no significant relationship between satisfaction with consumer care and star health insurance H1: There is significant relationship between satisfaction with consumer care and support star health insurance CHI SQUARE FOR MODE OF BUYING AND STAR HEALTH INSURANCE O i E i (O i - E i ) 2 χ 2 = (O i - E i ) 2 / E i CALCULATION Table value (n 1), (2 1) = 1 degrees of freedom at 0.5 % confidence level is χ 2 = 2.57 calc χ 2 = table χ 2 >χ 2 calctable Therefore Ho is accepted. There is no significant relationship between satisfaction with consumer care and support and star health insurance SUGGESTIONS It is very interesting to note that all respondents who are aware of Star health insurance product dealing with it.thus clearly reveals us the relationship between awareness and sales. The company may go in for aggressive awareness development programme by resorting to advertisements or sales promotion. Since most of the respondents are buying insurance products from direct to company the Company may concentrate on personal selling. Sales persons or agents are encouraged is trained by the company and depend up on performance may be awarded with bonus and incentives. this would motivate advisors to increase the sales product and maximize their contribution to the company. Profit margin provided to the customer s one of the most important factor that determines the customer satisfaction. Customer always prefer to deal a brand, with offers them high margin provided them for getting attracted by the company. To increase more promotional activities like gift coupon vouchers, free for every etc. To increase advertising by using various communication channel. CONCLUSION The Indian health insurance industry is growing at a fast pace and so are the issues and challenges linked to bringing in synergy with in the system.with rising health care cost,increasing disposable income and high out of pocket exprnditure for funding healthcare,the only way forward for financing healthcare in a country like india is through health insurance mechanism. 17

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