Understanding the Advice of Commissions-Motivated Agents: Evidence from the Indian Life Insurance Market

Santosh Anagol, Shawn Cole and Shayak Sarkar ()
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Shayak Sarkar: Harvard University

No 12-055, Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School

Abstract: We conduct a series of field experiments to evaluate the quality of advice provided by life insurance agents in India. Agents overwhelmingly recommend unsuitable, strictly dominated products, which provide high commissions to the agent. Agents cater to the beliefs of uninformed consumers, even when those beliefs are wrong. We also find that agents appear to focus on maximizing the amount of premiums (and therefore commissions) that customers pay, as opposed to focusing on how much insurance coverage customers need. A natural experiment requiring disclosure of commissions for a specific product results in agents recommending alternative products with high commissions but no disclosure requirement. A follow-up agent survey sheds light on the extent to which poor advice reflects both the commission incentives as well as agents' limited product knowledge.

Pages: 70 pages
Date: 2012-01, Revised 2015-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm, nep-ias and nep-mkt
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hbs:wpaper:12-055

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