If Nikita Khrushchev and Ross Perot were giving you business advice, which one would you listen to?

Nikita Khrushchev once said, "When you are skinning your customers, you should leave some skin to grow again so that you can skin them again." Ross Perot suggested that, "business is having great products, doing great engineering and providing tremendous services to customers."

The obvious answer -- listening to the customer -- was the basis for a presentation by PBN Chairman and CEO Peter Necarsulmer at a June 26 Marcus Evans conference on "Insurance in Russia and the CIS" in Zurich, Switzerland.

Necarsulmer described the challenges and opportunities presented by the Russian insurance market to an audience of Russian, European and U.S. business leaders.

In giving his own advice, Necarsulmer described the pyramid for a healthy insurance paradigm -- starting with consumers. He said that a key problem today with Russian insurance companies is that they are forgetting about a very critical audience: consumers. Some of the factors preventing the purchase of insurance, according to a PBN/IRG Survey of Internet Users, are that prices are too high (90%), there is not enough information (84%) and consumers don't trust insurance companies (61%).

So what's the solution? Necarsulmer pointed to the Perot strategy, saying that the key is in market-based research and products, transparency, industry information and education, among other items.

To view Peter Necarsulmer's PowerPoint presentation given at the Marcus Evans Conference, please go to http://www.pbnco.com/eng/news/presentations/ppt/insurance/index.php