The Advantage of and System Support for Combined Bankassurance Products

Abstract

Banking and insurance companies are both facing the problem of losing market shares with their core products sold via traditional marketing channels. In Germany the share of banking products sold in branches dropped from 98% in 1970 to 85% in 1987; the share of insurance products sold by the traditional exclusive agents dropped from roughly 90% to 70% in the same period and is expected to fall far below 50% at the end of the century (Krupp (1993); Schweickert (1993)). The bankassurance strategies in the financial services markets combine efforts to integrate insurance and banking products as well as the corresponding marketing channels. Suitable combined bankassurance products with provable customer advantages are one key for the success of these strategies; this is the topic of Chapter 2. The second key for success is to provide customer benefits by enabling the stationary and mobile marketing channels with the knowledge and capacity to offer and contract bankassurance products in an efficient way. Chapter 3 deals with the system support necessary for spreading knowledge and capacity in these channels; furtheron, first experiences from a prototype developed within the ALLFIWIB-project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft are sketched.