SBI Life Insurance Sales: Lavish Commissions and Incentives Drive Employee Rat Race

The sale of SBI Life Insurance within the State Bank of India has transformed into a competitive race, fuelled by extravagant commissions, incentives, and rewards. This comes in the wake of increased pressure on employees to meet ambitious targets for selling SBI Life insurance.

The push for SBI Life insurance sales involves costly commissions and incentives, catering to high-ranking bank officers.

Costly Rewards and Commissions
A recent revelation showcased an unusual proposal, where employees were tasked with achieving a whopping target of Rs. 100 lakh to celebrate the birthday of a senior officer.

Image: SBI Life Business Bouquet Target

The directive via WhatsApp read, “Let’s celebrate the Happy Birthday of our beloved GM Sir tomorrow (21.12.23) by giving him a Business Bouquet. Hope and wish everyone will get involved and enjoy performing tomorrow.”

Another approach to setting targets and acknowledging high performers involves organising lavish parties and dinners under the guise of bank-sponsored training events.

Image: SBI Life Training Program in Bathinda, Punjab

In one instance, an event in Bathinda, Punjab, purportedly focused on business performance and training under the collaboration of SBI Life Insurance and Punjab and Sind Bank, turned out to be a lavish dinner for those achieving SBI Life Insurance targets.

Image: SBI Employee on details of Dinner as Training

Anonymous SBI employees have disclosed that achieving targets, like selling Rs. 50 lakh worth of SBI Life insurance, could yield commissions of Rs. 25,000 and even trips to destinations like Goa. Successful sales may also be linked to job promotions.

A news report suggests that employees receive rewards such as silver coins and all-expenses-paid trips for meeting specific targets in selling insurance policies.

Discontent over SBI Life Insurance
Expressing their discontent, bankers on social media, particularly on X (formerly Twitter), have criticised SBI's intense focus on selling SBI Life Insurance. Some have humorously dubbed the State Bank of India as the “State Bank of Insurance.”

Curbs on Business Gatherings and Recognitions
In response to the growing emphasis on SBI Life Insurance targets, the bank issued an internal order on December 28, temporarily halting business conclaves, seminars, and felicitation programs related to any Joint Ventures, including SBI Life Insurance, until the end of FY 2023-24.

Image: SBI Directive on no felicitation, business conclave

​​This order is speculated to have arisen in the aftermath of the escalating targets for SBI Life Insurance and the recent extravagant felicitation of achievers in Rajasthan.

Despite regulatory efforts by the Reserve Bank of India and the Finance Ministry to curb mis-selling of third-party products and associated incentives, the absence of significant penalties for such malpractices poses challenges to customer service and protection. 

While the rewards for the sale of third-party products are a clear violation of the RBI guidelines dated July 2015, the lack of any significant punishment or penalty for such malpractices hampers customer service and protection.

The eruption of concession and incentives to extrapolate selling has blurred the fine line between healthy sales practices of third party products and undue pressure on employees and has emerged as a concern within the banking sector.