Trust Perception for Insurance Intermediaries--Bancassurance and Individual Agents With Reference to Individual Health Insurance Business - A Study of Mumbai City.

Trust is still an issue in the insurance sector as the insurance product sold is intangible. This study focuses on two major intermediaries, namely individual agents, and corporate agent-banks, selling individual health insurance policies based on whether they are trusted by policyholders. The research design used in this study was descriptive. The findings indicate that there is no significance difference in the mean rank of policyholders towards strong work ethics, competency, pricing transparency, claim process transparency, and privacy of shared information among agency channel and bancassurance channel. However, there exists a significant difference in the mean rank of policyholders towards ease of access. It can be concluded that Corporate Agent-Banks are available with more ease of access in comparison to Individual Agents. Since, the opinion of policyholders towards bancassurance channel and agency channel are almost similar towards agreement, it is recommended that General Insurers can invest in both these channels in Mumbai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]