In my opinion, selling fixed deposit is easier than insurance. I have experience of selling both fixed deposit and insurance products. However, I enjoyed more in selling fixed deposit. Fixed deposit is done with Bank and NBFCs. I would like to go with Bank. I can’t say anything about NBFCs. I have worked in an Indian Bank as marketing executive. My job role was to sell savings account and fixed deposit products to customers. Generally marketing executives work outside a branch, but I was appointed by branch manager, so I used to sell both SB and FD to branch customers. It is easy to convince branch customers because they trust brand name. While convincing customers outside the branch is very hard job.
I have worked in the branch as well as outside the branch. I found that I could easily sell financial products in the branch. Customers trust employees very much working inside the branch. While they face difficulties to convince customers outside the branch. In case of insurance products, I found that it is very hard to convince customers. Someone told me that selling financial products are more tough than others because you are selling only a concept not a hard substance.
Fixed Deposit: Fixed deposit is an investment as well as a saving product. The best part of FD is that customers can know their returns before it maturity. Banks mention the rate of interest on FD certificates which you can recieve monthly or annually or on the maturity of the investment. Few people do fixed deposit for MIS. Under this scheme people receive interest monthly. FD can be done for short-term as well as long-term period. But tax exemption was only available for five years fixed deposit scheme when I was working in the bank. This FD was not allowed to withdraw before five years. Currently I don’t know whether this plan does exist or not. At that time people were not getting tax excemption on short term fixed deposit. However, customers were allowed to withdraw their short-term FD at anytime. If you don’t want to take financial risk, then FD is better option for you because your money is safe under this scheme and gives you fixed returns.
Insurance: It provides you risk coverage. However, insurance is also treated as an investment product. I remember ULIP plan which is completely a investment plan but it also provides insurance coverage. It is totally different from traditional plan. ULIP plan is subject to market risk. While traditional plan gives a lumsum amount in returns. Even though Insurance provides risk coverage, it doesn’t promise you fixed returns. You will not see any rate of interest on insurance certificates. However, life insurance plan provides a risk coverage to dependents in the family, in the case of a policy holder’s death. I have experience of selling ULIP plan. A good amount of money is deducted from the first premium to pay company expenses. Then the rest of the premium is invested in the market. So the return on this plan completely depends on market condition.
Comparison between Fixed Deposit and Insurance:
Fixed deposit gives you fixed returns as well as tax deduction. It is also a one time payment. You don’t have to deposit quarterly, or annually except recurring fixed deposit. I don’t know how many people invest in recurring fixed deposit. Most of them like to invest as one time deposit because recurring deposit might be failed. Investing in fixed deposit is mostly safe. That’s why most of the people like to invest in Fixed Deposit rather than in Insurance. They make one time deposit and receive fixed rate of interest. While in insurance they have to pay premium monthly or quarterly or half yearly or annually which is also one kind of burden. If you failed to pay the premium for long time, your policy will be lapsed and you will have to pay fine to revive it again. But I can’t say that you don’t need to buy a insurance policy. You should have a policy because it provides you risk coverage.
In my opinion, Fixed Deposit is easy to sell rather than a Insurance policy. I experienced it while working in the bank.