IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM) e-ISSN: 2278-487X, p-ISSN: 2319-7668. Volume 16, Issue 3. Ver. V (Mar. 2014), PP 34-41 www.iosrjournals.org www.iosrjournals.org 34 | Page Service Quality Assessment: A Study of Consumer Satisfaction in Indian Insurance Sector 1 Priyanka Anjor, 2 Prof. S.H.Ali, 3 Mohnish Kumar, 4 Vijay Kumar Verma 1 Faculty MBA, Department IET, Lucknow 2 KMCUAF, Univ. Lucknow 3 Faculty MBA, Department IET, Lucknow 4 Faculty MBA, Department IET, Lucknow Abstract: The service quality has become a highly instrumental co-efficient in the aggressive competitive marketing. For success and survival in today’s competitive environment, delivering quality service is of paramount importance for any economic enterprise. The underlying model of SERVQUAL (Parsuraman et al., 1988) with five dimensions is used to evaluate the impact of service quality on customer satisfaction. The present study aims to measure customers’ perception and expectation towards life insurance service quality. Data has been collected from 500 customers from the five cities of Uttar Pradesh (progressive State of India). Besides, the study also investigates the relationship between customer expectation and perception of service quality dimensions and customers overall satisfaction of life insurance service quality. Keywords: Service quality, Life insurance, Perception, expectation, satisfaction. I. Introduction The liberalization of Indian economy ushered in an era of competitive marketing leading to the radical changes in the entire gamut of products and services. The service sector, limited in nature and scope, changed into an aggressive mode appropriating the front stage touching almost every sphere of human activity, viz., banking, insurance, information technology, welfare etc. and accounted for approximately two-thirds of worldwide GNP right from the beginning of the twenty first century (Kara et al., 2005). Delivering quality service is considered an essential strategy for success and survival in today's competitive environment (Dawkins and Reichheld, 1990; Parasuraman et al., 1985; Reichheld and Sasser 1990; Zeithaml et al., 1990). In the literature, the construct of quality is conceptualized based on perceived service quality (Hishamuddin et al., 2008). Perceived service quality is defined as „global judgment, or attitude, relating to t he superiority of the service‟ (Parasuraman et al., 1988). In the huge service sector, insurance sector is one of the most important entities which has been growing relatively fast in India. At present there are twenty three players in the Indian life insurance industry out of which Life Insurance Corporation is one of the leading public companies, holds largest number of policies in the world to suit different financial requirement of an individual. With a greater choice and an increasing awareness, there is a continuous increase in the customers‟ expectations and they demand better quality service. Therefore, to sustain in the market, service quality becomes a most critical component of competitiveness for Life Insurance Corporation of India. The study underscore the need for Life Insurance providers to gear customer service and quality improvement efforts towards components of reliability. Service firms like other organizations are realizing the significance of customer-centred philosophies and are turning to quality management approaches to help managing their businesses. SERVQUAL as an effective approach has been studied and its role in the analysis of the difference between customer expectations and perceptions has been highlighted. Outcomes of the study outline the fact that although SERVQUAL could close one of the important service quality gaps associated with external customer services. The study is based on 500 Life Insurance customers from five major cities of Uttar Pradesh KAVAL (Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Agra and Lucknow). Customer service is an integral part of Life Insurance organization. It is necessary to identify the key success factors in Life Insurance industry, in terms of customer satisfaction so as to survive in intense competition and increase the market share. The study will emphasizes the role of improve service quality and hence customer satisfaction. It intends to promote a better theoretical understanding and recognition of the complexities to service quality and its measurement with respect to Life Insurance. Nowadays, Life Insurance companies in Indian compete each other to be a strong and good reputation. The challenge for Life Insurance sector in Indian remains the same that is to bring innovative solutions to client while making them realize the value of those services provided. When clients realize that quality is something that cannot be compromised, an organization has to survive in the competitive market while managing high value service.