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Every company is looking toward meeting the needs of the customer and, hence, they are coming out with different ways of doing business that leads towards this end. This is changing the entire landscape of how financial services are sold and various services related to these areas are provided. In such a situation, it is important to remember that each of these efforts has their base in a common position where the individual is able to understand the benefit and make the best use of them.

Insurance:

The areas that the insurance policies cover includes a pure term cover, as well as other savings and investment products where there is some savings element present in the policy. This leads to a situation where there are different needs of the investor that are being met and, hence, this requires some attention at the time of the sale of the policies.

For a long period of time, there have been complaints that the insurance policies are not being sold with some proper analysis, but these are just being pushed to increase the sales of the various products. Often the customer is given these policies in their portfolio even when there is no need for such policies. There are now changes that are blowing through this area also, as the attention focuses on the need of the insured individuals.

Need analysis:

The insurance regulatory authority has issued draft guidelines for moving to need-based selling process from April 1. This means there will have to be a need analysis before the sale of an insurance policy. This will require that the insurance company provide a detailed need-analysis-cum-proposal form to the investor where questions related to the investors age, financial position, annual income, risk appetite and financial goals will be asked.

In theory, this is a very good thing as there is a proper way in which the entire analysis is being made and, hence, there will be a better way in which the entire sale process will take place. When this is actually implemented, it has to be seen that there is some use that is actually made of the provision. The risk is that this will be considered as just another procedure to be completed and, hence, will not be done seriously. This needs to be avoided so that the new provisions will have some impact.

Requirement important:

No matter what is the name given to several of these exercise, investor has to ensure that there is way in which the exact requirements are brought to the forefront. This is important because the entire financial planning activity starts with the needs and goals that are set for the individual. Once the efforts are taken forward, then the individual is able to proceed towards achievement of the final targets. This will ensure that the actual need is taken into consideration so that the desired result is actually witnessed.

Going around it:

There are lots of examples where there are good rules that are made for the purpose of completing a specific task in a specific manner. However, when it comes to the actual implementation, the situation is different because of the fact that there are efforts made to go around the entire situation.

This will mean something like a position where the need analysis is not done properly or that the details are just filled up for the sake of filling up and, hence, there is no relevance left for the entire effort. This needs to be avoided if there are some results that have to be witnessed for the entire effort.