Abstract
Global life insurance industry is facing major changes and the leading insurers are innovating their services in order to compete. Shifting consumer needs, changing regulatory requirements and the service competition are driving insurers to shift from the traditional ways of doing business to new channels, business models, processes and technologies. Services are the engines of expansion in the modern economies and service innovation is of vital importance to these service organizations. In this exploratory study, an attempt is made to understand how service firms actually innovate. Zonal managers of select ten private life insurance companies in India are interviewed. It is found that all the ten private life insurance companies have a Formal NSD unit and the top executives and research and development department participate in the creation of new services. The role of customers are also considered important.