Marketing channels play a significant role in selling insurance products. Insurance is a subject matter of persuasion so without an intermediary it is difficult to sell insurance products, but with the advent of information technology selling insurance products directly through the website or technology-enabled intermediary has become a direct route in the performance and growth of insurance companies and the insurance penetration and density. Further, after the opening of the insurance sector for private and foreign companies, new marketing channels have come into existence; these newly emerged channels have impacted performance and growth along with previously used marketing channels. In the present study performance of intermediary channels and their growth have been assessed taking into account the first-year individual and group business premiums received and policies and schemes issued and lives covered by the life insurance sector in India using the statistical technique of two-way classifications ANOVA and the Tukey Post Hoc Test. At last, although all marketing channels are contributing for the growth of the life insurance industry in India, but for individual business Individual Agent and Corporate Agent- banks have been found to significantly differing from other channels, whereas, in the group business, the channel direct selling is found significantly differing from other marketing channels.

Keywords : Marketing Channels, Life Insurance, Economy, Penetration, Density, International