Small update on InsurTech in India

E-commerce meets insurance; insurance API infrastructure & motor mania in this edition!

Hi folks; it’s been a busy week for me but let’s jump right into this brief update on InsurTech in India with 3 topics:

1. Flipkart forays deeper into insurance

   • They’ve launched motor & bike insurance [1] following a series of insurance product launches (Covid-19 specific health insurance in April; life insurance in February etc); also, it’s a full quote to bind journey (i.e. this isn’t lead gen from Flipkart!)

   • This is part of a growing trend whereby e-commerce players enter insurance; if you recall - Acko Insurance received $13M (Series B) from Amazon & they’ve been close partners since (FYI - if you’re up for it, go check out Amazon Pay on the Amazon India website; you’ll see they’ve soft launched insurance too!)

   • Below is a summary of Flipkart’s previous forays into insurance; you can find the extended read on LinkedIn [2]

   

2. Riskcovry raises its Pre-Series A

   • I wrote about Riskcovry in my Q3 FY20 InsurTech update [3] by noting “pivot to success” (they were initially a commercial insurance provider - now an insurance API infrastructure provider)

   • For my Indian audience, this raise highlights the growing interest in FinTech API infrastructure; as you may recall - Setu and YAP (banking/lending API infrastructure providers) raised funding in April - $15M and $4.5M

   • For my international audience, you may see this as part of the “insurance-as-a-service” theme; global comparables would be Kasko, Qover et al

   • Pre-Series A raise was ~ $1.21M [4]

3. Motor insurance pilots galore!

   • Under the IRDAI regulatory sandbox, several firms have be authorized to conduct POCs for “usage-based motor insurance” (focused on the Own Damage component of a comprehensive motor product).

   • Note that such products are limited to 10,000 policies sold (over a 6 month trial period, extendable to 12 months) with an aggregate premium limit of ~ $65,000

   • Thus far, I’ve seen Acko, Bajaj Allianz, ICICI Lombard & Bharti AXA launch “pay-as-you-drive” policies. These policies provide quotes based on “mileage slabs” (so this is ideal for your 2nd car/if your car doesn’t ply ~ 7,500 kilometers per year); I won’t delve into policy wordings, but there are some questions around claims handling if you cross the milage slab you paid for.

   • Today, Edelweiss General Insurance [5] announced Edelweiss Switch; effectively you can turn on/off the Own Damage component of your motor insurance on a daily basis (this is one step closer to pay-as-you-drive motor insurance i.e. the ability to turn on/off your motor coverage)

Hopefully this write-up was useful; today was a rather exciting day for InsurTech in India - 3 newsworthy items! I look forward to your comments, thoughts and feedback.

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