In the first quarter of FY25, Bandhan Life took flight, as a revamped avatar of Aegon Life Insurance, positioned for growth, with a commitment to empower individuals and families to achieve their financial dreams. As 2024- 25 was the foundational year of existence as a brand for Bandhan Life, the brand launched of the "Bharat Ki Udaan, Bandhan Se" campaign, to build consumer trust and break barriers. This transition also saw a move from being a digital life insurance company, predominantly known in the metros, to Bandhan Life, part of one of India's most trusted financial services groups, Bandhan Group. Akhil Almeida, Head of Marketing at Bandhan Life Insurance says, “The revamp was more than just a change in the name or brand, it was actually a shift in our mission. When we launched "Bharat Ki Udaan, Bandhan Se" campaign, it was a commitment to the 95% of India that even till today remains underinsured. The challenge for us when we took on this mission was not to just gain market share but to also win trust, especially in those parts of India where insurance still feels quite intimidating, irrelevant and inaccessible.”
Typically, the biggest slice of business for most insurance companies, about 40%, comes in the last three months of the calendar year. For Bandhan Life, FY25 was a ‘positive year’, and being part of the larger Bandhan Group, gave the insurance arm an opportunity to scale up significantly with access to the entire Bandhan banking network across the country. Almeida states, “We set up our touch points across 1,700 branches and all these branches were activated by the time we hit the peak season of life insurance, January to March in Q4FY25. That really worked out well for us because it was for the first time that Bandhan Bank customers were able to see a Bandhan Life Insurance branded product made available to them at a touch point they frequent.”
Being the company’s first foray into bancassurance as a channel, ‘the growth was phenomenal’, and largely driven the bank assurance business. He explains, “Going forward we will bring in other lines of business as well. We have always had very strong partnerships with aggregators and NBFCs, and traditionally sold our products through these channels. Bancassurance has given us a huge level up as we now have multiple channels and revenue streams accessible and available to us." Though the growth seen in Q4FY25 was 'massive,' this was on a small base, due to limited channels available earlier, and the ambition is to scale up rapidly going ahead.
Building Trust: Simplification, Regionalization & Accessibility.
Trust is a critical factor, particularly in emerging India where people are not very conversant with a topic like life insurance. He says, “Trust is the true currency right of life insurance, and in much of Bharat, trust has to be earned. It is not earned through advertising but earned one conversation, one claim, or one experience. What is very heartening is that people aren't really verse to life insurance. The messaging for the need for insurance didn’t relate to consumers because of the way it was being marketed. The policies are relatively complicated, the paperwork exhausting and the language can technical. Now as a brand, our job is to fix these issues and introduce life insurance to the consumers.” Bandhan Life focused on three specific areas – Simplification, Regionalization & Accessibility.
Simplification, simply put this is cutting down on jargon and the complexity while explaining the product, possibly in a short-form video to help the consumer understand the core benefits of the financial services product they are looking at.
Regionalization: With the focus shifting from the metros, Bandhan Life looked to be relevant at a regional level, especially in emerging India, by speaking in the local language. Content was created in eight languages for the geographies where its channels were being accessed.
Accessibility: While insurance is a new category for the consumer buying in, it cannot be expected consumers to adopt entirely new behaviors who prefer channels and environment they are already familiar with. This includes channels such as Bandhan Bank - the physical touch point, online, Whatsapp etc. with Whatsapp based lead generation becoming important for the brand. A lot of the company’s internal processes, such as KYC, have been enhanced over the last couple of years without any paperwork. Almeida says, “Our features, either physical or digital, are consumer focused. Simplification, regional relevance and accessibility, this is what helps us enable and build on brand trust.”
He continues, “We don't see India as one market, India is a thousand conversations happening at once. For example, in Assam, people are asking about savings for their children, in West Bengal they want security with flexibility, in Bihar we discovered homemakers, were asking questions about life insurance. However, they're not asking it in traditional forum but on their Whatsapp groups. If we used the same creative in the same language with the same logic, we would have missed it. We had to adapt, which means we had to explore new channels and take the same product, but we had to present the product in a more contextual way and meaning based on the life stage and the region.” He adds, “When you adopt this approach the payoff for a brand is that you're going to get higher engagement and better quality of leads. Most importantly, your consumers are going to feel that this is a brand that actually gets me right and speaks to me in a channel and in a space where I am already conversant. So, if you're looking at regional India, it's about being able to adapt beyond just the language and also getting into the mindset of that consumer, and trying to bring out the nuances that are relevant to them.” The media choice in this case is chosen to ensure that the message is tuned to the relevant audience.
Targeting The Underserved Segment
Another key mission is to serve the underrepresented segment that life insurance has traditionally not been marketed to. The brand looked at how it can become relevant to an entirely new segment of consumers who have been largely ignored by the industry. A lot of insurance players focused on the salaried class, when in reality, the majority of Indians are self-employed and for whom life insurance has remained more difficult to access. Another key segment was homemakers, who may not be bringing home an income but have tremendous emotional and economic value to any Indian household. Homemakers typically do multiple jobs in their households, from being caregivers to educating children, looking after the home and the health needs of the family etc, and when a family loses a homemaker, it’s not just emotional loss but also has an economical impact. Bandhan Life looked at targeting this largely ignored crucial segment, identifying their need and bringing them under the financial security blanket that life insurance provides.
Technology As An Experience Layer
Another change at Bandhan Life, in the past 6 months, has been the move from being primarily a term insurance company to introducing new products which offers both guaranteed returns and returns at a slightly higher rate as well as highly rated Unit Link products as per Almeida. He notes, “It's about giving consumers the choice.
When we talk to a consumer today, it's not about just pitching a product but first understanding where they come from, what they do, who are their dependents, their financial goals etc. Then we figure out which product or combination of products is going to help them achieve their financial goals and aspiration. When you're able to create that alignment, that's when you're really going to have sustainable success. This is important as in Life Insurance, Trust is the is the real currency.”
Looking at technology, Bandhan Life looks at technology as an experience layer. It looks to sell life insurance not just as a product but by designing an experience. As per Almedia, “A consumer who's interfacing with technology expects the same ease of use while buying insurance that they might get when they are shopping or watching something on an OTT channel. It's not about incremental improvement in life insurance experiences online but about creating real, meaningful changes in the way that we are serving that customer right and creating journeys withing that environment that they can navigate.” Bandhan Life is also looking to leverage new technology with AI with AI adding an additional supporting role, especially for processes like chat support.
On a final note, Almeida says, “We made a promise that we will show up where others have not been able to. We will design our products for consumers who have been overlooked for the most part. It's a promise that we will continue to keep insurance simple and keep it intuitive. We want to ensure that the name Bandhan Life is worthy of their trust. For us life insurance is not just a product. it's a promise and we have to make sure that this promise reaches every corner of the country.”
.jpg)
