Top Insurtech Companies in India

Today, first-time insurance buyers in India are better informed and have more choices than Indians wanting to buy insurance a decade back. The growth of insurance sector in India in the last few years is mainly due to the emergence of more than a 100 insurtech firms.

Read more to find about the leading insurance startups in India and the future of insurtech in India.

Indian Insurance Industry Analysis

Indian insurance industry is known for its lengthy and complicated processes. Many times, the expensive policies marketed by the established insurance companies are simply out of reach of the common man.

Read: Inane Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Life Insurance Policy

These are the reasons Indian insurance markets have one the lowest market penetration and density as compared to the global figures.

India Insurance penetration – 3.69%	Global Insurance penetration – 6.13%
India Insurance density – 73 USD	Global Insurance density – 650 USD

Insurance penetration is the ratio of Insurance premium to the GDP of a country. Density indicates the coverage or premium paid per person.

People will be more interested in investing in insurance policies if they get:

• Personalized services
• Quick response
• Easy documentation and form filling
• Variety of products
• Quick settlement of claims

These needs of the customers have been recognized by certain tech savvy start-up companies who are tying up with traditional insurance companies to make buying insurance policies much easier for the end customer.

Given below is the list of such top insurtech companies in India who have changed the insurance scene in India.

Top 10 Insurance Startups in India

1. Policy Bazaar

Policy Bazaar is one of the oldest and largest Insurtech companies in India. It brings together information about various policies at one place and lets the customer choose the best one according to his/her own needs and lifestyle.

The company was started by Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar in 2008 in Gurugram, India. It provides services through its website and app.

PolicyBazaar is also one of the best health insurance startups as it provides some very good health plans for individuals, families and corporates. It gives details of various policies like the price and benefits on its website and also provides customer support for a fee.

With this simple business model the company has emerged as a billion dollar startup making it one of the first Unicorn startups in the insurance sector.

Unicorns are private companies that are valued at more than $1 billion.

The company has won several awards like The Best Insurance Tech, Best Financial Website and Best Mobile App in Consumer Finance.

2. BankBazaar Insurance

BankBazaar was founded by Arjun Shetty, Rati Shetty and Adhil Shetty in 2008 with the aim of simplifying the loan process in India. The company diversified into insurance sector and today is one of the leading startups in the InsurTech sector that offers insurance products in Life, Health, Car and Two Wheeler category.

BankBazaar Insurance offers products and services of more than 25 insurers and has helped more than 10 lakh customers make the right policy decision through their portal.

Must See: Most Popular Myths Related to Life Insurance

3. Coverfox

Coverfox was started in 2013 by Varun Dua and Devendra Rane. The idea was to simplify the insurance buying process and enable the end customer to make informed decisions. It is one of the best life insurance startups having tie-ups with 24 life insurers.

The company also offers health, auto, two-wheeler and travel insurance. They assess the customer’s needs and then find and rank policies that are most suitable.

The company is one of the best insurance-tech startups in India and has won many awards like the Coolest startup of the year, The Smart CEO and Videobomber award.

Some key investor’s in Coverfox are SAIF partners, Catamaran ventures (Narayan Murthy’s firm) and Accel Partners. They together have invested around $40 million in Coverfox.

4. Acko

Acko is the latest insurtech in the Indian market having started its operations in 2016 only. The company got its IRDAI license in 2017.

IRDA is the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India that regulates insurance companies in India. Its main aim is to protect the rights of policyholders. Hence, it is recommended to buy a policy from an IRDAI licensed company only.

Founded by Varun Dua of Coverfox, Acko is also the first internet only insurance companies in India. The company has received investments from Amazon, SAIF, Accel and Catamaran Ventures.

Some of the products offered by Acko are mobile insurance (partnered with Amazon), motor insurance and in-trip insurance (partnered with Ola).

5. Easypolicy

EasyPolicy was established in 2011 by former Reuters employee Alok Bhatnagar, Neeraj Aggarwal and founding member of PolicyBazaar Divyanshu Tripathi.

The company has tie-ups with 36 insurance companies and provides best policy options to its customers in an unbiased manner. It offers products and services for both life and non-life insurance segments.

Some firms that have invested in EasyPolicy are Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer ventures and Burman Family Holdings (Dabur). Unilazer has 70% stake, Dabur has 5% stake and the founders have 25% stake in EasyPolicy.

6. Digit Insurance

Digit Insurance Company which is also known as Go Digit was founded in 2016 in Bengaluru. It is one of the best general insurance startups in India and offers products and services like Car and bike insurance, home insurance, jewelry and mobile insurance, bicycle insurance and so on.

One of the key investors of Digit insurance is Canadian based financial holding company Fairfax which plans to invest Rs. 200 crore this year. It will take the total investment in Digit insurance to Rs. 1000 crore making it one of the best funded insurance startups in India.

The aim of the company is to simplify claim settlement process through the use of latest technology.

The founder and chairman of Digit Insurance is Kamlesh Goyal who has 15% stake in the company.

7. Turtlemint

Turtlemint was founded in 2013 by former Quikr employees Dhirendra Mahyavanshi and Anand Prabhudesai in Mumbai. The company offers assisted insurance service through which they advise customers on various policies. Their recommendations are based upon data analytics and algorithms.

The company also provides offline assistance and has 25000 agents who serve the company’s 20 lakh customers spread across 700 cities. The company has tie-ups with 15 insurance companies and provides health, car and two wheeler insurance.

Turtlemint is one of the best motor insurance startups and has product profile as follows:

• 70% – motor category
• 20% – health category
• 10% – life insurance

The company’s investors are Nexus Venture, Blume ventures and Sequoia. Sequoia has recently invested $25 million in the company.

8. Toffee

Toffee insurance is one of the most innovative emerging online insurance startups till date. It offers health insurance for products that has not been offered before by tying up with healthcare startups in India.

Here is its unique list of products and services:

• Dengue insurance
• International travel insurance
• Mosquito insurance covers diseases like malaria, chikungunya
• Cyclist insurance insures cycle against theft
• Bagpack insurance insures your bag against theft

As you can see its products are aimed at tech savvy millennials.

Toffee insurance was founded by Nishant Jain and Rohan Kumar in 2017 in Gurugram. They work with 9 insurance companies to come up with unique small sized insurance products. Most of the funding received by Toffee is through Angel investors.

9. RenewBuy

RenewBuy is an insurance aggregator like other InsurTech startups and aims to provide transparency and ease of use to its end customers. Founded in 2015 in Gurugram by Indraneel Chatterjee and Balachander Sekhar, the company has presence in over 450 cities.

The company works with 20 insurance companies and provides insurance products and services in health, life, motor and travel categories.

RenewBuy is one of the fastest growing insurance startups in India and has so far built a customer base of over a million people.

The chief investor of the company is Amicus Capital which had recently invested $9 million in RenewBuy. Other investors are Lok Capital and IIFL holdings.

10. ETInsure

ETInsure is one of the latest insurance startups in India. It is an attempt by the Times Internet group to digitize insurance buying process. The site was launched in 2017 with the aim to provide customized car, two wheeler and health insurance policies.

The company claims to have helped more than a million customers in this manner.

ETInsure is headed by Shankar Nath.

Other than the companies listed above some innovative InsurTech Startups in India to watch out for are:

• Insurefirst
• Symbo
• BimaDirect
• 121 Policy

List of Insurtech Companies in India

Insurance industry startups in India are trying hard to bring in transparency and increase awareness among people by digitizing the 200 century old insurance sector.

Many people are benefiting from these new insurance startups in India that have revolutionized the whole insurance buying to claims settlement process. An example is the reduction in motor insurance claim processing time for Kerala flood victims. The time was reduced to 3 days from 2 weeks by using tech-enabled tools like video chats.

Hopefully, this evolution of the insurance technology sector in India will continue and will help bridge the huge gap between the demand and supply of the sector.