The journey of an Insurance agent Mr. Viral Fadia, a member of LIC Chairman’s Club for Agents who started selling insurance policies from his college days
“If I would have not taken a risk setting up my own business selling insurance, I wouldn’t be so successful in life” says Viral Fadia.
After appearing his SSC in 1982, his father encouraged him to join their family business of cotton trading. But Viral didn’t have much interest in his family business. He wanted to set up his own identity. One of his family friends, Mr. Bharat Purohit was working as an LIC agent servicing around 450 clients. Viral approached him to learn more about the insurance business.
He worked with his uncle for 3 months during the vacation period before college. Working in his uncle’s firm helped him to acquire knowledge about servicing and administrative procedures like maintaining registers, birthday registers, calling up clients to inform them that their premium is going to get due etc. He also had to visit clients place for collecting premium cheques.
Viral wanted to take up a part job along with his graduation. So in 1985 he took up the insurance agency as a LIC agent.
He first made himself familiar with all the insurance products with the help of his uncle. But his uncle never recommended him any clients as he wanted Viral to set up his clients by his own reference and hard work.
He first started selling insurance policies in his vicinity through cold canvassing. The second area where that came up in his mind to secure maximum business was approaching industrial areas and residents of Worli. Since he was familiar with the administrative procedures, it helped him in the preparation of premium charts and graphs to explain to his clients.
“Initially, it was very difficult to get an appointment. Insurance selling requires hell lot of patience” says Viral.
Nearly after six months of his continuous hard work, he got his break from an entrepreneur Mr. Neeraj Kocchar to whom he sold 12 policies for his entire family. “At that time I felt as I have taken my first step in insurance business. I was now confident of continuing insurance selling as my career, as in one go I was able to sell 12 policies instead of approaching twelve different people.” says Viral.
“I made a strategy that from every client I will take four new references of people who were very close to them. This helped me a lot to get new clients. It took me almost one and half year to get stable in my business with a client base of 100. Being a member of National Sports Club, I had an access to the members list. I got almost 30 per cent of clients from the club’s list” says Viral.
During 1989 he witnessed a slowdown in his business. He was finding it difficult to get new clients. “I realized that I needed some modification in my approach. Even though nobody distributed pamphlets at that time, I decided to try it. LIC used to gives us rough cards detailing product features. On those cards I printed my name, number and details of other services. I used to go distributing 75-100 pamphlets on a daily basis to industrial estate like A to Z, Century Bazaar etc. This particular strategy helped me to get new clients. Within a span of eight months, I got 200 new clients. My business again started to grow” says Viral.
“In ascertaining client needs, I go through their existing policies. For a new client, I recommended policy only after understanding their target goals.” says Viral.
In early nineties, Viral was earning an income of around Rs. 14000 -15000 per month in premium renewals apart from commission on new policies. Since Viral had a sufficient client base he thought of entering into the non-life sector also. He became a New India Assurance agent the same year. It took him around three months to understand the non-life products. He found it easy selling non-life products to his existing clients.
The non-life business got him another 100 clients. “My development officer Mr. Abbas Tawawala helped me a lot in getting new clients for my non-life business. He used to accompany me for joint calls with clients. That was the period I started to grow big” says Viral.
Currently Viral has a loyal client base of 600 whom he sells life insurance products and another 300 clients in general insurance. He sells on an average 300 new policies every year. “I have made my base selling small policies to my clients, making sure that their policies never lapse. I have always tried to maintain a persistency ratio of above 85 per cent” says Viral.
Viral believes that for establishing first 75 clients it takes around a year and half, but the number doubles in the next 5-6 months with the help of references.