5 Indian Companies Contributing To The Global InsurTech Revolution
Technology is a tool and not an end. By itself, it is not enough; its true value can be gauged when it is applied and manages to improve the lives of people and the services to which they have access. Big Data, IoT, Cloud Computing, Blockchain and AI are some of the technological developments taking off the fastest and promise to revolutionise the world today. The marriage of insurance and such technology has given rise to InsurTech – a new way of understanding the world of insurance, just as it happened with the transformation of financial services and the emergence of fintech.
India is a major player in the global insurance industry. By 2023, the country’s insurance sector is forecasted to grow to $150 billion. All thanks to the many Indian tech platforms achieving success on a phenomenal scale. They are contributing to the InsurTech revolution by helping stakeholders of all kinds increase customer reach and sophistication on service levels, which in turn is creating a new wave of how insurance is sold and serviced. Below are 5 Indian companies that are sure-shot game-changers on the way to change the industry on a global scale.
PolicyBazaar
PolicyBazaar is India’s largest insurance aggregator. It was founded in 2008, aiming to bring transparency and educate the masses about buying insurance products from agents. The company led the way in driving the penetration of pure life insurance, health insurance, and other such products, which were barely bought earlier. Today, it has become India’s largest insurance marketplace and a leading InsurTech brand globally. From receiving traffic of 180,000 visitors in 2008, PolicyBazaar.com has come a long way and today hosts over 100 million visitors yearly and records sales of nearly 1,000,000 transactions a month. As of today, the platform accounts for 7% of the nation’s retail health business and almost 25% of India’s life insurance coverage. It also accounts for roughly 50% of all digital insurance purchases in the country and is more than doubling annually. Since 2018, the company has expanded its operations to the United Arab Emirates.
Mantra Labs
Mantra Labs (ML) is a cognitive products and solutions company founded in 2009. Its AI-first products are solving real-world challenges in the digital insurance landscape. The company’s key offerings are 3 AI-based products FlowMagic (a visual platform that streamlines workflows), Hitee (industry-specific chatbot), and LPA (inbound lead conversion accelerator). While its strategic initiatives include intelligent customer experience consulting, deep insights & experiential design and digital journey management. One of the oldest InsurTech companies in India, Mantra Labs has the ccrème de la crème of clients (Religare, DHFL Pramerica, Aditya Birla Health, and AIA Hong Kong) along with unicorn startups (Ola, Myntra and Quikr). What’s more, the company also has strategic technology partnerships with Nvidia, IBM Watson and MongoDB Inc.
Pentation Analytics
Founded in 2015, Pentation Analytics has arrived late to the InsurTech game. And yet, it has contributed immensely to the global revolution. The company aims to leverage predictive analytics for developing applications, using data from existing transaction systems, processes and practices for the enterprise. And it seems the company is well on its way. Today, it enables insurers and intermediaries to maximise their customers’ value via its proprietary, machine learning-based analytical product ‘Insurance Analytics Suite®’. The product addresses multiple use cases – Cross-Sells, Retention/Persistency, Acquisition and Underwriting. Available on cloud and on-premise, the product is aimed at business users. It has been implemented at leading insurance companies in India, with renewal and cross-sells improvement rates already ranging between 3% and 12% depending upon the risk segment. Promising numbers indeed!
Artivatic
A year younger than Pentation Analytics, Artivatic is an AI-Native SaaS Insurtech platform consisting of 50+ APIs and 10+ Plug & Play products. It helps brokers, insurance & healthcare enterprises and B2B2C companies streamline a wide range of activities – document extraction and digitisation, customer behaviour & health profiling, automating buyer onboarding journey, risk intelligence and underwriting and claims administration. Customers using the platform have experienced significantly reduced costs and increased engagement from buyers, leading to better customer satisfaction. As a startup, Artivatic is only five years old, and yet it is already working with umpteen clients across paid services, pilots and POCs. What’s more, it has partnered with ICICI Prudential Life (a leading player) for developing its new underwriting decision engine and profile users for improved and customised products and services.
Acko
Acko is a fully digital general insurance company challenging the prevalent norms and standards of insurance in the country. Its offerings are innovative products – based on customer behaviour and data analytics – that improve operations and provide a seamless experience across the entire value chain. In just four years since its inception in 2017, Acko has already insured 40+ million Indians and holds an 18% market share of digitally transacting users in the country. As a category disruptor, Acko also introduced the revolutionary Ola Ride Insurance, which provides benefits in case of loss of personal belongings, accidental medical expenses, missed flights, ambulance transportation cover and more. Customers can purchase the cover on the Ola app. As of today, Acko has a little over 8% market share of all car insurance products bought digitally in India.