Insurance ads: Here, there, everywhere!

If you happen to switch on the TV any time, chances are that you'd get to see at least one insurance ad. And that's the "only" type of financial advertising that you see. Gone are the Mutual Fund ads with their funny Disclaimer read outs, or advertisements related to trusting a bank, and so on. Almost all the advertising budget seems to be spent on getting people to buy insurance.

It started with the KILB campaign. Which was so long-drawn, I don't think many people figured out or bothered to link it to Insurance and least of all to the people behind the campaign. Would you know who the advertiser was? I checked with a few of my friends about it, and they didn't even seemed to recollect the ads. Only when they were specifically told about the ads and Irfan Khan did they seem to recognize it faintly. Any way, after that there has been a deluge of insurance schemes being advertised. Without doubt, the most successful of them has been LIC's Jeevan Aastha. The campaign itself is supposed to be hugely successful with LIC really raking in the numbers. But a lot of experts and financial planners have pointed out that the reason for it could be a misunderstanding or a miscommunication by agents to their customers about the actual returns.

I remember watching a show on one of the TV channels where they rate financial products and Jeevan Aastha got a thumbs down. The latest ad that I saw from IDBI FORTIS. They have an SMS code where you could send a message and get a free booklet. I tried to find about them on the Net, but google didn't turn up anything. Hmmm....

Why's insurance hot? I have a couple of theories on it. Let me firm them up before I write about them. Till then, have a good week.