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Our Bureau

Mumbai , Sept. 23

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has tied up with American College to provide the LUTC (Life Underwriter Training Council) certification course for its top-performing life insurance agents.

The course, which consists of six modules on professional sales practices, is being offered in partnership with the Delhi-based International Academy of Insurance and Financial Management, the Indian affiliate of American College.

ICICI Prudential plans to have 1,000 life insurance advisors, of its 60,000-agency force, undergo this course in the next two years. The company, which has the largest agency force among the private life insurance companies, hopes the course will help its agents build and grow their business with an emphasis on protection selling.

The company's training programme is in the wake of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India expressing its concern over the mis-selling of insurance, particularly Unit Linked insurance Plans (ULIPs). While the IRDA has made 100 hours of training mandatory, there have been reports of numerous non-accredited institutes giving out certificates.

At the presentation of the certificate for the completion of the "Ethics for the Financial Services Professional module" to 86 life insurance agents, Ms Shikha Sharma, Managing Director and CEO, ICICI Prudential, said the training course was part of the company's customer oriented strategy.

"Insurance is a difficult concept, which requires a great deal of face to face selling," she said.

Regarding IRDA's mandatory 100-hour course, Ms Sharma said that instead of too much of micro-management of the testing architecture, training should be robust and efficient.

Ms Sharma also said that pitching ULIPs against mutual funds as an alternative savings vehicle was not mis-selling as opposed to a lack of clarity in the communication of risk to the customer.

She said that apart from training, the company had put in place numerous checks to prevent mis-selling of insurance.

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