InsuranceDekho building one-stop-shop to solve India’s fragmented insurance ecosystem

The insurtech firm secured $150m in Series A funding round

Experiencing first-hand how fragmented the insurance ecosystem was in India, Ankit Agrawal set out to build a company that served as a one-stop solution for partners and consumers.

He founded InsuranceDekho, an Insurtech firm not only devoted to making insurance available but to providing citizens with the best claims experience through integration.

The plan was simple: provide maximum benefits across the motor, health, life, and other general insurance products in the entire industry by bringing the insurers all in one place.

Turning a personal setback around

In a quick sit-down with Insurance Asia, Ankit shared how his idea of a tech-first insurance distributor was borne out of a personal experience with claims.

“After coming back from the US, I had to deal with an insurance claim in the family which exposed me to the challenges of a fragmented insurance ecosystem in India. If a literate and well-aware customer like me with a fairly comprehensive health policy had to go through claim hassles during difficult times, we can only imagine what people in the hinterland would be going through,” he said.

With that in mind, the InsuranceDekho CEO built his firm as a tech-first insurance distributor that offers a comparison on quotes from different providers to aid customers in choosing what insurance to buy.

The platform lets you compare insurance quotes from 46 insurance companies and purchase the insurance policy that best suits a customer’s needs. It caters to all the needs of partners and consumers from sourcing to fulfilment to post-sales support and helps them scale multifold.

What sets InsuranceDekho apart is the wide reach of its platform, since Ankit wants it to reach rural areas in India.

“There are many Indian villages -- where an ID (InsuranceDekho) partner is the only way for people to access and buy insurance. In India, very often a health emergency means financial bankruptcy for the family -- we have been able to create a transformational impact by making insurance accessible in some of the remote regions where we operate,” Ankit said

Insurers also benefit from that reach. Currently, ID partners are present in 98% of Indian zip codes. The insurtech is eyeing to get 200,000 partners onboard to serve all of India on their platform.

Funding

Up until recently, InsuranceDekho has been bootstrapped but it has recently raised $150 m consisting of a mix of equity and debt, the largest ever series A round by an Insurtech company in South East Asia. 

The equity round was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and TVS Capital Funds with participation from Investcorp, Avataar Ventures and existing investor, LeapFrog Investments.

“With this funding, we want to build a robust insurance platform for Bharat (rural India). There are 640,000 villages in India and we want to make insurance accessible to all. We plan to continue building on our tech stack and products, invest in branding, and evaluate some mergers and acquisition opportunities we have identified across technology and geographical expansion capabilities. We are also working on new offerings and plans to expand our micro, small & medium enterprises (MSME) and life insurance portfolio offerings,” Ankit said.

Staying competitive

To stay ahead, Ankit said they would lean on tech-driven initiatives and innovations to improve the customer experience by enabling them to choose the right policy by themselves.

“We have also developed AI-based tools to recommend the best-suited approach to the customers based on their profiles and requirements. India has at least 6 crores (60 million) MSMEs, and most are uninsured. We are working on exciting features and innovations to serve the MSME market. Besides, we are looking at several new niche insurance use cases with protection gaps.  We are also working on multiple initiatives to enable our partners to serve their customers with better policy suggestion tools, anytime commission, ledger transaction history, and anytime training,” he said.

Additionally, a lot of focus is also put on the training and development of their employees and advisor partners. InsuranceDekho created a dedicated learning module called ID Academy which consists of 100+ videos and other learning tools insurance agent partners can access anytime to learn about the insurance industry, the products, and how to service customers.

InsuranceDekho also makes sure to upscale employees by having them undergo in-person and virtual training sessions.

“For better understanding, agents must go through the assessments before being onboarded. There are regular quality checks and audits that ensure our partners provide the most accurate information to the customers,” Ankit said.

Apart from learning and development, ID has all the accurate information on the website before customers can buy the plan. The Insurtech firm also does stringent quality training for its call centre executives who call up the customers and inform them about all the policy features before it is issued. InsuranceDekho also shares an easy-to-understand ‘Know Your Policy’ document with all its customers before the policy is issued.

InsuranceDekho holds its partner agents to the highest standards. Any partner who is found to be misselling insurance products is immediately suspended and investigated. Those found guilty are then blacklisted from the platform.

Insurance for everyone

Ankit said the Indian insurance sector has witnessed steady growth propelled by resilience and adaptability over the last two decades. He added that whilst insurance penetration has grown, the overall penetration still remains low. Digital transformation is paving the way for a paradigm shift in the sector. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated digitisation, boosting the overall growth and expansion of the entire insurance ecosystem. 

“Some trends that will transform the Indian insurance industry in near future are the adoption of new technologies like AI, ML, IoT, cloud computing and blockchain to boost innovation; niche insurers and customised insurance products; and automated claims which will boost customer trust in the sector,” said Ankit. 

In the next five years, Ankit hopes to bring many first-time customers into insurance with the help of their agent partners. He envisions that InsuranceDekho will serve every village in India in the near future, using technology, distributors, and agent partners.