The fintech ecosystem in India Vinzite has been blossoming for the last couple of years. While payment tech firms have existed for over a decade, there has been a lot of development in other FinTech verticals. The subject of discussion here is the insurance tech space. Online companies are cutting short the lengthy process of negotiating with brokers and banks, followed by endless documentation exchanges to allow consumers to buy insurance policies with just a few clicks.
Insurance 2015 to 2020, reaching Rs 15,000 crore. This indicates the opportunity created by technology, which organizes the scattered space of insurance retail. Two leading firms in this space are Policybazaar and Cover Fx, with 1.5 million and 350,000 visits monthly, as per SimilarWeb. They are also the most funded firms in their segment, with $69.6 million and $14 million raised to date.
Among these established firms, some startups gradually carve out a share of the total market opportunity by building their own USP. The larger objective is still to make insurance buying easier for all users through technology. Subir Mukherjee founded GIBL in 2014 with a similar aim: to eradicate the misselling of insurance policies through an easy, informative web and mobile app-based procurement platform.
An Introduction to GIBL
Subir’s own bad experience in dealing with health insurance brokers and ‘nightmarish’ paperwork led to him establishing GreenLife Insurance Broking Pvt. Ltd. The company is building an intuitive web and mobile platform to enable customers to make their own decisions for policy buying through a tech-guided and personalized process. GIBL isn’t only an aggregator; it has a broking license from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.
“We are giving customers the option to see multiple quotes & the features at their fingertips. Within a few minutes, they can understand what is good or not for them and decide accordingly. It removes the dependency on what the agents say and accepts the price they are quoting,” says Subir.
About the Product
The product curates quotes from over 25 insurance providers across segments and allows users to review them per their requirements. Additionally, understanding the need to present documents repeatedly to redeem or renew policies, the mobile app acts as a policy vault to store all policies, claim history, etc.
The company claims to have partnered with insurance firms to offer its customers a better price and an option to buy policies instantly without uploading documents.
When asked why a consumer would download an app for policy buying, Subir responded, “Our App gives our customers the flexibility to purchase a policy or do the research on the go. It will store their required policy documents, claim details, motor RC copy, and all related documents at their fingertips. Now e-Policy for a motor is being accepted, so there is no need to carry the hardcopy.“
The platform is built on Microsoft MVC technology and takes pride in its integrated workflow and customer relationship management system. “We integrated continuous machine learning, profiling, and pattern matching algorithm in our integrated system, which brings automated sales suggestions to our team and helps them bring more sales,” says Subir.
Progress Till Date
The company claims to have approximately 500,000 registered users and sees around 20,000+ monthly transactions. Subir says they are growing at a 50% rate month on month. It acquires most of its users through content marketing and SEO efforts. In FY15-16, GIBL claims to have grown 5000% over the last financial year. Additionally, the company sees a 90-95% renewal rate for policies bought through its platform.
Challenges in Building an Insurance Tech Firm in India
“Our biggest challenge is the people’s faith in God and karma. As a nation, we believe nothing bad could happen to us as God is watching if we do good. So they feel God has already safeguarded them and will protect them from any disaster. As a result, they think they don’t need any insurance protection from any company.” shares Subir. “Most people in India will prefer to take the chance more than being insured. It is an extension of the Jugaad mentality. So educating the masses is still the pivotal challenge.” he adds.
Most people might not think of purchasing insurance unless they buy something new or come in close contact with a health or accidental mishap. The traditional path of buying insurance is also tedious; there’s no straightforward way, nor are the consumers aware of a go-to person or a destination who would guide them right. BCG’s research also predicts that in 2020, 25% of insurance buying decisions will be influenced by digital.
The startup operates as a customer-first broker, educating and guiding customers wherever required. It aims to make policy buying and claim settlement easy. Subir shares, ‘Recently, we fought against two mighty insurers and settled more than Rs 15 lacs of claims for our customers. They were delighted, and their smiles made our job so easy.’
On Competition and Market
Considering that the investor-funded companies have built a name among consumers, we asked how a new player like GIBL would sustain itself in the space, to which Subir responded, “There are few companies out there who have raised funds in this space. But the current status of most of these companies is just like their other eCommerce peers. They are at a big loss; if you dig deep, you will discover they are struggling for their existence. Spending money on advertisements can create the brand, but this doesn’t guarantee revenue. Their current revenue does not justify the big spending. The burn rate of these companies is high.”
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Also, quoting the prediction mentioned above of the Rs 15000 crore market size by 2020, Subir opines, “Online insurance is very fragmented, and still there is not a single player with more than 10% of the existing market.” hence, there is a lot of opportunities for more companies to startup in this space. That said, the online insurance industry has many players in the market, such as Policybachat, EasyPolicy, NammaPolicy, InsuringIndia, PolicyX, and more.
“Being an insurance broker gives us the advantage to design our policy and expand both offline & online. The industry will take time to go online, so we move at our own pace. We are building up our niche and our special customer-centric process, which will keep us ahead of the competition.” says Subir.
