How much did the star agent of LIC who sold policies worth Rs 2,467 crore earn?

image credit to Mansi Thapliyal

  For decades, Bharat Parekh has been in the habit of carefully watching the death notices printed in newspapers every day. Even in the crematorium of Nagpur city, daily burial is. This has been his routine for decades, as his job was to sell life insurance policies.

   "You don't need an invitation to India to attend someone's funeral," says Parekh. "Even if you find out that the mourners are relatives of the deceased. You meet them and tell them that I am an insurance agent. If you want to settle any insurance policy claim, say so." . Saying so you should give your visiting card."

As the days of mourning are over, calls are received from some families.

  Often they return to their homes by themselves. They help the family and try to get you a compensation on time.

  They also try to know how much financial hardship has arisen due to the death of a family member, how much debt they have, whether they are adequately insured or not, and whether they have savings and investments.

   "I know the fate of a house. I lost my father when I was very young."

55-year-old Bharat Parekh is one of the 13.6 lakh agents of the country's largest insurance company, Life Insurance Corporation of India.

LIC has one lakh employees and has issued 28.6 crore policies.

    This 66-year-old life insurance corporation, which is currently in the news due to its public offering, is a household name. More than 90% of the policies of Life Insurance Corporation are taken out through insurance agents like Parekh.

Bharat Parekh ranks among the star agents of LIC.

A well-dressed Parekh is like an enthusiastic salesman and has the fervor of a preacher.

  He has sold insurance policies worth 324 million dollars. Most of their customers are in Nagpur.

Parekh says he has sold around 40,000 policies and gets a fixed commission from them. They provide services like premium collection, settlement, claim settlement, etc. for free.

Bharat Parekh can be considered a celebrity in the field of insurance agents.

He is currently in the limelight in media reports, as his earnings are more than the Chairman of LIC.

He has been consistently selected as a member of the Million Dollar Round Table for three decades. It has earned him a place among the world's foremost life insurance and financial services professionals.

   He also gets invitations from schools, colleges, banks, and management schools to give lectures. One of the motivational speeches he sold to an audio cassette company was titled: Meet the No. 1, Be the No. 1 (Meet the Number, Be the Number).

Bharat Parekh's bustling office employs 35 people and provides a variety of financial services to clients.

The most important service is the life insurance policy. He lives with his wife Babita in a spacious apartment in an elite area of ​​Nagpur.

His wife is also an insurance agent. He recently gave up a modern SUV, as he likes to go on long drives to relax after 18 hours of work.

image credit to Mansi Thapliyal

"Look, how strong!" they say, delighted to give the SUV a lever like a child.

He has progressed very fast. He has also written a book, in which he weaves his life story along with advice on how to save.

   In his book, he quotes Walt Disney as saying: "If you can dream it, you can make it happen."

As the son of a mill worker family, Bharatbhai had no chance to dream as a child. He was brought up in a one-room rented house. All lived in the same house with parents and siblings and widows. There were many difficulties in life. The brothers used to work making Khokhas to earn.

Bharatbhai started selling insurance policies after completing morning college when he turned 18.

He used to take a bicycle on hire and go to meet the customers. When a customer was found, the sister would do the paperwork.

    He used to sell the policy with proverbs and sayings, such as when he told his first client while selling auto spare parts, "Life insurance is like a spare tire that comes in handy when your car gets a flat tire." He was touched by this and took out the policy, from which Bharatbhai got a commission of Rs 100 for the first time.

In six months, Bharatbhai sold six policies and at the end of the year, he had earned a commission of around Rs 15,000.

He allowed these earnings to run the house. "Selling insurance policies is very difficult. I used to come home crying many times," he recalls.

Insurance agents also don't have a good reputation and are notorious for being calculated to take advantage of people's uncertainties in life.

Despite this, Bharatbhai did not lose. Over the years they got smarter.

He felt that it was easier to communicate after the event of death than to communicate with a living person.

His clients range from street vendors to businessmen. They are adept at building relationships and building networks.

One of Parekh's customers is Basant Mohta.

Mohta, who belongs to a five-generation mill worker family, lives 90 km from Nagpur. He has a joint family of 16 members. His mother is 88 years old and the youngest grandchild is one year old.

   He has taken out his insurance only with Bharatbhai. "Life insurance is necessary, but I think what's more important is an agent you can trust," says Mohta.

Bharatbhai believes that the reason why he was successful was that he was ahead of the times and kept spending as needed.

He ordered a Toshiba laptop from Singapore and started keeping computerized records in 1995.

He also went abroad and took finance training. Mobile phones came to India and they took to them immediately even though the call charges were very high.

He gave pagers to his staff. Also made a good office, started using cloud base technology, and have also prepared their own app.

image credit to Mansi Thapliyal

They also advertise themselves on the obituary page every day. They sponsor children's programs to attract them as their customers right from the start.

   Indians have been taking out insurance for protection in the event of untimely death and for relief when it comes to paying taxes.

Now, by LIC's own admission, there is stiff competition from "mutual funds, bank deposits and small savings".

Life insurance corporations now want to strengthen their presence in the digital world, so that clients can easily purchase insurance online. There is much more work to be done. For example, after recording deaths, Parekh and his staff continue to celebrate the living.

After seeing the obituary, he also regularly sends greetings to his old clients on WhatsApp.

"I have to send birthday, and wedding anniversary wishes to a lot of people every day," he says.

Even when we met he showed his phone and said look at all these names, addresses, and numbers in front of it and their events. Today is the birthday of 60 clients and the wedding anniversary of 20. He says, "I want to send greetings to everyone. I also want to send gifts to some."

I asked him how he remembers all the events in the lives of 40,00 insureds at once.

"That's the secret," says Bharat Parekh with a hearty laugh.