Customer perception towards general insurance: A factor analysis approach

With the increase in risk there is need of insurance to bear the losses. Insurance is the instrument used as the financial protection against various contingency. This paper examines the customer perception towards the General Insurance. A study had been conducted at Gwalior region with the sample of 200 respondents to find out the perception of the customer (policyholders). In this context, the respondents’ opinion on the various related statements were collected with a 5 point scaling. Reliability, Factor analysis, multivariate technique had been applied on the data. The result concluded that loyalty, transparency, proficiency, reliable and convenient services are the five factors from the 18 statements on the basis of the expectation of the customers. This study signifies that various customer had different expectation from the insurance company in the studied area.


Introduction
In today's era everyone wants safety and protection. Insurance is an umbrella to protect from risk. Insurance is defined as sharing of the losses of unfortunate among those who are exposed to the same level of risks, suffering and destruction of damage to their properties which are likely to be caused by perils like accident, fire, theft and etc. Insurance is the type of investment which gives the financial security against any uncertainties. Insurance industry is growing industry which started from LIC life insurer and GIC non life insurer companies and due to rise in demand the private sector was allowed into insurance business. Foreign companies can serve in Indian market by joint venture with any Indian companies. However, foreign ownership was restricted not to exceed 26 per cent of foreign investment. The insurance industry in India is regulated by The Insurance Regulatory Development Act (IRDA), which has the object of ensuring effective administration, supervision, regulation and control the business of insurance in India. The insurance industry of India consists of 57 insurance companies of which 24 are in life insurance business and 33 are non-life insurers. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) is the sole public sector company among the life insurer. There are six public sector insurers among non-life insurers in India. General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC Re) is the sole re-insurer in India. Brokers, surveyors and third party administrators servicing health insurance claims and agents (individual and corporate) are the other stakeholders in the Indian Insurance market.
Insurance provides various benefits to individuals, families, organizations and the country as whole. The insurance sector in India has become an open competitive market where there are many insurance companies serving different types of insurance products and services. By time insurance has gain much importance and now people prefer non life insurance to protect against risk. The development in the insurance sector in India reveals the 360 degree witnessed over a period of almost three centuries. The market size of gross non life insurers reached Rs. 962.05 billion for FY October 2019 with a growth rate of 12.40% as compare to FY October 2018. The premium figure signals that people want to ensure themselves in every aspect. With continuously increase in market share insurance sector is now full of open competition.  4 studied customer attitude towards general insurance. The study was done to know the customer attitude of erode district. For the study questionnaire of 25 statement on likert scale were designed and collected from the 750 respondents of the erode district. Factor analysis, multivariate techniques was applied on the data collected and group all statement into six factors i.e. loyalty conscious customers, trustworthy conscious respondents, agent conscious respondents, performance of the policy conscious respondents, policy transparency conscious respondents and bonus conscious respondents. Turquet P. (2012) 5 found that the Dutch, German and French health insurance systems had been attempting to contain cost and diversify the sources of finance which mainly come from social contributions.

Review of Literature
Jain & Lodha (2012) 6 analyzed the factors influence the customer satisfaction in general insurance. Questionnaire was used to collect data and data as collected from 200 general insurance policy holders of state of Rajasthan Thangadurai & Rahim (2015) 7 studied the customer perception towards online insurance. For the study primary data was collected through questionnaire and field work and secondary data was collected from government records, newspapers, business magazines, websites and other sources. Chi-square a technique was used for analyzing the data and study suggested adopting specific measures to enhance the online initiatives to drive the growth further.
Bihani & Bhowal (2016) 8 studied image gap between the expectation and experience of the customers in Johrat.
The primary data was collected through questionnaire for the study from the Jorhat district. The result revealed that the difference between the degree of customer Solution expected from the insurance and the degree of customer Solution experienced is statistically significant.

Statement of the Problem
Many insurance products are been introduces in order to capture the targeted market and get more profit. The services companies which were meant to give service are now focusing on profit. What they want from the insurance company in terms of product and services, whether agents are being trained to understand the needs of a client. Are they offering and suggesting them the policy which actually meets the client needs or just selling the policy. Additional benefits can be bought in the form of riders as cover against deadly disease, surgeries and disability due to accident.
This research is trying to investigate, identifying and analyzing the factors which influence the customer perception towards general insurance of Gwalior region, how the clients make decision. What are the factors being consider before purchasing any general insurance policy. This research will help private and public insurance company to identify the customer perception and will help in introducing correct product and services in market.

Objectives of the study
The following are the specific objectives of the study:

Reliability analysis
A reliability test was carried out by using IBM SPSS 21 software. Where in Cronbach's alpha reliability test is was applied to check the reliability coefficient, which was computed for the entire statement used in the questionnaire. .243 Tests the null hypothesis that the error variance of the dependent variable is equal across groups. a. Design: Intercept + gender + occupation + sector + gender * occupation + gender * sector + occupation * sector + gender * occupation * sector

Reliability Statistics
The null hypothesis states that the Levene's statistics test has a value of 1.319 and the p-value of.243 predicts that we do not reject the null hypothesis and we conclude that the data do not violate homogeneity of variance assumption and that is why we will proceed with interpretation of ANOVA. In case of hypothesis 1, null hypothesis is not rejected because F-value is 0.184 at p-value 0.668 which concludes that there is no significant difference in customer perception across gender. In case of hypothesis 2, null hypothesis is not rejected because F-value is.055at p-value 0.814 which concludes that there is no significant difference in customer perception across occupation.

Tests of between-subjects effects
In case of hypothesis 3, null hypothesis is not rejected because F-value is 2.485 at p-value 0.117 which concludes that there is no significant difference in customer perception across sector. The combined effect of gender and occupation were also not significant in case of customer perception as F-value.318 is at p-value.574. The combined effect of sector and occupation is significant at 10% level of significance as Fvalue is 3.220 at p-value.074. The combined effect of gender and sector were significant in case of customer perception as F-value 4.162 is at p-value.043.

Factor Analysis
Factor analysis using the Principal Component method with Varimax rotation. However, before applying factor analysis, the data was tested for its appropriateness. KMO & Bartlett's Test were applied to test the appropriateness of the data. Wherein, the result of The Kaiser -Meyer -Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy was found to be 0.767, indicating that the sample was adequate enough to consider the data as normally distributed in the current study. .000

KMO and Bartlett's Test
The Bartlett's Test of sphericity led a null hypothesis that the item to item correlation matrix is identical matrix. The result of Bartlett's test of Sphericity was evaluated through the Chi-Square Value, the value of Chi-square was found to be 933.034 which is significant at 0.000% level of significance. Therefore, the null hypothesis stating 'item to item correlation as identity matrix' is rejected, indicating that the data is suitable and normally distributed so it can be used for factor analysis. .507
The statements indicate the claim settlement of the policy so termed as reliable or trustworthy.

Transparency (2.031)
The third factor explained 11.286% of variances. In this segment the important variables are Q8 (.853), Q10(.497), Q11(.498) and Q17(.583).The statement indicates the terms and condition of the policy so termed as Transparency.

Proficiency (1.956)
The fourth factor explained 10.868% of variances. In this segment the important variables are Q4(.760), Q6(.650), Q11(.517), Q17(.583). The statement includes state about the ability of the employees, agents and staff. So the factor is termed as the proficiency.

Convenient services (1.768)
The fifth factor explained the 9.823%of the variance. The variable of this factor are Q1 (.813), Q2(.667) and Q9(.507). The statement indicates the technology so it is termed as convenient services.
Implications of the Study 1. This research can be used by the insurance companies to understand the perception of the customers towards general insurance. 2. The research can be use by the insurance sector to decide the policy. 3. References of study can also be helpful for further research.
Suggestion of the Study 1. The analysis is based on 200 respondents and if we increase the no. of respondent result may vary. 2. To ensure generalization further study should be carried out a much large sample. 3. The current study was carried out for using purposive technique. This shows limitation is terms of sampling error. 4. This research has been done in Gwalior region, further study can be done in any other region.

Conclusion
The competitive climate in the Indian insurance market has changed dramatically over the last one decade. With the rise in risk and rapidly increasing in the expenses now a day's people prefer to take insurance to financial secured themselves from the uncertainties. After applying the test it can we conclude that Loyalty, Transparency, Reliable, Proficiency and convenient services are the factors which affect the Customer perception towards General Insurance. There is no difference in the perception of the customer towards general insurance across gender, sector and occupation. The insurance companies should consider the above factors before taking decision.