We have heard of many Fintech successes in India. Good stories of PayTM, MobiKwik, Freecharge etc. Almost all of them are in the payment space. KPMG did a report on this in June 2016 covering the themes, the ecosystem and some learnings. The banking industry is getting into this wave of disruption with all these new age Fintechs changing the game. We also have a wave of new banks that have entered the market now. This combination of startups with new age banking institutions are sure to bring a disruption to the banking world in India.
The lone wolf in that KPMG report was PolicyBazaar. PolicyBazaar, an web aggregator, has been in the market for quite sometime. Are they the only ones in the InsureTech category? Looking further another analyst called Fintelekt came out with another report titled “InsureTech in India — Slow and Steady, Poised to Win” published in Oct 2016 listed a couple of more startups like CoverFox and RenewBuy. Is that all one is forced to ask? Unfortunately that seems to be the list as of now atleast of the popular ones.
There is though a silverlining for the InsureTech space in India. New age digital insurers are going to open shop pretty soon. The people behind CoverFox have set on a journey to create Acko Insurance. The people behind Fairfax are backing a new insurance company called Digit Insurance. These are great signs of the changes and disruption to come. We should expect a lot more to happen in the coming months and years. The addressable market for insurance in India across all segments is quite big. We could very soon be seeing a fully digital insurer in India. The regulator for their part are also making some changes to foster digital innovation. They have recently introduced a regulation to promote eCommerce in Insurance. The regulator in this regulation has introduced a concept called ISNP (Insurance Self Network Platform) which can be setup by any intermediary.
SMBSure is an InsureTech startup that aims to make insurance tailored, cost-effective and transparent for small and medium businesses. SMBSure through digital tools helps business owners calculate their risk exposure, get insurance coverage recommendation and plan for the future. SMBSure through its partner network of insurance agents is able to provide choice of cost-effective insurance options to choose from.
