Insurance companies- How do they get people to buy insurance policies?

When an insurance agent talks to me, I'm not comfortable talking about disabilities, surgeries and death. He doesn't know me well enough to be talking to be about such topics (considered quite personal in India).
So how do Insurance companies make money? Their whole model of making money is to sign up lots of people for insurance and pay for a small percentage of the signed up people's costs. But if you have difficulty getting one person to buy your insurance policy, how in God's name do you get thousands to sign up?
Simple:
Give a referral fee! You've done the hard work with one person who bought your policy. Now let him do your hard work for you. He will have a better chance of getting his friend signed up since he knows his friends financial and personal situation, but an insurance agent will try to build a relationship from scratch, try to sell (over sell) his policies,etc.

For every person that signs up for an insurance policy, you pay the referee a percentage so effectively the referee's policy costs are brought down and the insurance company's success ratio goes up.
Makes sense?

Submitted an idea for the Simplicity Challenge (Philips and CNBC TV18 )

I have submitted this idea about CFL (compact fluorescent lamp):

I don't belong to an educational institute, but I am still submitting my idea.
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If we were to let companies advertise on CFLs(by projecting a text onto a wall when the CFL is on), the cost of the CFL can be minimized.

CFLs are better than incandescent bulbs for the environment, but the high cost of CFL lamps is a deterrent for consumers.
Ads on the bulb will minimize the cost of the CFL and this will substantially reduce the energy consumed in homes.
I'm sure you realise the immense business potential this has.


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This contest is actually open only for students, but since I'm not currently a student, I will obviously be disqualified. I want this blog entry to count as evidence for my idea in case some company decides to implement this idea.

The Hamara Bajaj ad

Here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWFSG0YL_mM

In continuance of my previous post, if this ad had been shown when Chetak was taken off production lines, you could have had the new Pulsar180 on one side of the screen and the Chetak on the other. Noice!

The cadbury ad!!

Yezz , you know which ad I'm talkin about , don't you?
Here it is again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H10V5_neQrA&mode=related&search=

This is, quite simply, one of the best Indian ads.
Why?
1. Cricket
2. Beautiful jingle
3. The girl
4. The cute dance in the end
5. The belief that it could really happen :)


I don't know why Cadbury did not show this ad right after the "worm crisis". This ad, or a sequel to it, could have single handedly revived the sales. Instead they signed on AB(not that he's not a good brand ambassador), but you gotta make effective use of your money. You first pay AB, millions to agree to appear in an ad. Then you make ads, again putting in millions. You buy air time,.
Instead they should have started this ad again. I guarantee you, it would have been better ROI.
Some of Cadbury's ads (Miss Palampur, for instance) are stupid and lack creativity. Even if Cadbury is trying to get into the rural market, they can come up with ads that will appeal to both segments. (In fact don't create ads for specific markets, at all)

Why an oldie ad would work?
An oldie ad will get instant attention from people who used to see it on tv when it was originally aired. So assuming the ad was 10-15 years old, the person who viewed it at that time would definitely be a decision maker at home. (If he/she was a kid, he's/she's now a husband/wife).

TV viewers usually switch channels when ad comes up (and have you noticed how every channel will show ads at the same time, esp the movie channels). But an ad like this will be watched for the ad and not for the product (strange, but true). When you watch the ad, you would notice the product. (Hell, I'd buy a Cadbury's over Mars just for this ad)

Case: watching saas bahu show, this ad comes up, my mom will watch the ad and next time she wants to buy a choc for my niece or nephew, guess which it's gonna be?
If parents watch an ad, the kids have to watch it(guess who has the remote?)

If Bajaj had come up with their hamara bajaj ad again to announce that the Chetak's production was being stopped, imagine the eyeballs this ad would have got? With some statistics on scooters sold, no. of families it managed to be with, you could have had a stunner!
The Ericssion ad (even my dad loved that ad when it came out). In these days of channel surfing, the ads have to be different (or the same :p).

I know my thoughts are jumbled here, but I hope you get the point I'm trying to make.

Sachin opts for heavier bat again - HURRAYY!!!

http://www.deccan.com/Sports/Sports.asp#Sachin%20opts%20for%20heavier%20bat%20again

Is this the turning point we were all waiting for? Is Sachin ready to fight again? I don't know why but this move of his makes me feel that he is not ready to go down without a fight!!

I am a BIG fan of Sachin. He is THE man. I was feeling very distraught over the way his batting style had changed. I feel he didn't trust his instincts (maybe a little too many dubious lbws have contributed to that). This last 2-3 years, it was like Amitabh Bachchan's career in the nineties when he did movies like Suryavansham, Bade Miyan Chotte Miyan. He looked out of place, people were questioning his start power - this guy who probably defines the word "super star" better than any other "stars". But then, AB came back with a bang. I think this is the pivotal moment in Sachin's career. We should see a new (actually, the old) Sachin now.

God!! Won't that be nice? Indian Cricket : There is still hope - there is still Sachin!

Rocky Balboa - a review!!!

Did I like it? Hell, YES!!
Would I recommend it? Of course!!

If you're big Rocky Fan (if you've seen all 5 Rocky movies or even just Rocky IV -then the answer is yes) , then there's no way that you cannot see this.

If you wanna read about the movie plot line, I suggest you visit http://imdb.com/title/tt0479143/

In Rocky Balboa, you can feel Rocky's pain and anguish at losing Adrian, his wife. Losing his money in Rocky V still hurts him a lot (though this fight and the movie is not about the money), because Rocky feels that he couldn't provide the best things to Adrian after he/they lost all the money, but she stood by him all throughout.
[Rocky Balboa: [visiting his old house as he thinks about Adrian] ... I remember when she was standing there all nervous and shy with that small smile... And all I wanted her to do was trust me... And she did... She did... ]

It's also about his relationship with his son, which sours because of his son's insecurities and problems living under his dad's shadow. This bit could have been handled a little more in depth - just one pep talk to his son solves the problem here, but instead of having more footage given to Marie, played by Geraldine Hughes, I feel that had Sly explored this aspect of his family, it would have been better.

Sly looks old in this movie, but MAN he still works out. Check out his body in the fight (last part of the movie). For someone who is 61 (yup he's 61), he looks really fit. Half his face is paralyzed and this makes him look and sound older.

I'm really waiting for Rambo IV. That's going to be another kick ass movie. I doubt if Sly is gonna do anymore action movies after this, but his legacy will live on, 'cos after all "It ain't over, till it's over"!! (I feel like saying Sameer Mehta, BBC news, Tokyo)

Coffee - the performance enhancing beverage

Coffee or kohii as it is known in Japan, is one good beverage. I'm used to having 4 to 5 cups of strong tea a day when I'm at home in Hyderabad and work in our SumT office in Hyderabad.
I stopped drinking coffee for the first few days I was in Tokyo, because I didn't get the kind of coffee I like (strong but with lots of milk).
As a result, I noticed that my energy levels at work were quite low. I didn't have the same enthusiasm that I usually have. Then for the past few days, I started drinking instant coffee at work, with cream. There's a marked increase in my energy levels, at least ( did you know at least are two words and not one - thanks to the dictionary tool in blogger) for a couple of hours post drinking coffee.

Now I don't know if I should be happy that I finally can have the kind of energy and enthusiasm levels at work that I'm used to OR should i be concerned that I've gotten used to the caffeine and my dependence on tea/coffee is slightly alarming?

For now, I'm happy. I don't about others - how do their bodies react to a decrease in caffeine levels?

Anyways, drink on for now!!!!!!! :)

(songs I was listening to while writing this post - Tere bin - Rabbi Shergill and Funky Town- Blondie)

Fav quote: Rocky Balboa

"It ain't about how hard you hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much can you take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blogger in Japanese?

I finally wanted to post something on my blog on this fine Sunday morning and when I go to blogger.com on my Firefox browser (cliched phrase coming up), lo and behold, it was in Japanese. Now, my Japanese skills are basic and rudimentary, so typing in Japanese was outta the question.
Workaround : log in to Gmail first, and then open blogger.com . It should work.

Edit [ 6th May ] - This doesn't work, it worked in my case since I logged in to my VPN which assigns my system an IP from India and then the blogger website automatically changes to English (Right now, I'm using the Japanese Version) :D
No known workaround as of now.

Tokyo!!

Well, I'm in Tokyo! Will be here for another month or so! My first trip outside India and MAN!! what a trip!
The Japanese people are just amazing - they give each other a lot of respect, they talk very politely and they work very hard.
I wanna write some more stuff here - places to see, what to eat (if you're a veggie and non veggie), etc.

Virgnia Tech - "most horrific shootout till now"?

This is how TV reporters are describing what happened at VT. Other facts - there have 19 cases of shootouts in places of learning in the last 10 years (source: BBC). I'm sorry, but what will it take for the American Public to wake up and smell the gunpowder?
It is really only the public that can take a stand for gun control, because the American politician's sure ain't gonna do anything - the gun lobby is too damn powerful.
If you need guns for your protection, then what is your Police really doing? If the world's (only) superpower's citizens feel the need for owning guns because they need them for their protection, then one really needs to think if this is a sane line of thinking. Just because you have a history of owning guns (and doing so proudly) is not justification enough for continuing to sell firearms to the public.

This incident was not because that it was that guy at that place - it was just a guy who was nuts and had EASY access to guns. The most troubling thought is that this combination is frighteningly common in a country like the US (in other countries, it would just be "a guy who was nuts and threatened to jump of a building").
So all it takes is a simple sequence of events - "weird" or mad guy has enough of his employer or teacher, decides to take some revenge for the wrongdoings he is suffering.

Sad to say but unless there is a drastic change in gun control laws in the US, incidents like this will continue to take place (I wish I'm wrong).

Visa power!!

I just receieved my US B1 Visa! It's for a ten year period. Out of the 10 years, how many years would I actually spend in the US? That we will have to see! :)
Any Companies that are looking for IT folks with a B1 visa, look no further! Your search ends here!

And we're ....................

back!!!!!

I think I should be putting in more posts this year as opposed to last year and the year before that!

Hoping that this year should be a great one (God, are you listening?) :)
Need a (extra) little help this year!