Insights Success is covered "India's Most Innovative Insurance Tech Companies,'here we can find best Insurance Tech Companies,
our business magazine is especially focus on that Insurance industry to determine the contribution of that era in 2021.
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India's most innovative Insurance Tech companies
1. www.insightssuccess.in
Tech-benefits
Benefits of Insurance
Tech Companies
Insure-tech
Technology Trends
that will shape
the Insurance Industry VOL-11
ISSUE-08
2021
India's most
innovative
tech companies
nsurance
I
Jaideep Chatterjee
Managing Director
msg
g l o b a l
Delivering Sustainable and Creative Solutions
2.
3.
4. Editor’s Note
echnology has percolated in every industry
Ttoday and is now poised to transform the
insurance sector. If predictions from stalwarts in
the industry are to be believed, the insurance sector
will witness a mammoth change in the next few years.
Traditional insurance companies have already started
incorporating technology in its functioning, operations,
and customer interactions and services. After a brief
resistance to change by some traditional organisations
the insurance sector is now ready to embrace it,
realising the benefits of automation.
The significant disruption will be through artificial
intelligence (AI) that will help in increasing productivity,
creating new products and services, improving
customer interaction. Besides, cloud technology can
aid in creating a robust database and seamlessly
connect the stakeholders of the insurance company.
INSURTECH -
REMODELLING
THE INSURANCE
LANDSCAPE
5. New players in the insurance industry have already
started using technology to create new products and
services. The established companies are in the process
of making the transformations in digitalizing their
functioning. It is a wake-up call for these companies to
tie their laces and catch up with the trends lest they
lose the race or trail behind.
However, considering customer preferences and
comfort, many players are considering a hybrid model
of operations for the present. Nevertheless, the
competition would be tough. Technology is moving at
lightning speed in the insurance sector that will open
floodgates of opportunities for the new entrants and
existential threats to the new players.
Gauging the pulse of the trends, some insurance
companies have started introducing technology in
their operations, functioning, products, and services.
Insurance tech companies are assisting insurance
companies in accelerating digitization. With
automation, things are being simplified for both the
insurers and the customers.
We selected a few insurance tech companies that are
helping insurers grow in scaling their businesses and
products. These companies are constantly making
innovations in their products and services. We featured
them in our latest edition of Insights Success - India's
Most Innovative Insurance Tech Companies. Read
about their exciting foray into the insurance
technology space, the trends in technology, disruptive
innovations, and the future of insurance tech.
Have an enlightening read as you flip the pages of this
interesting edition.
Sumita Sarkar
Editor-in-Chief
sumita@insightssuccess.com
7. Cogitate
Delivering Future-ready,
Digitally Accelerated Insurance
14
22
18
Coverfox
Making Insurance Procedure
Swift and Tech-savvy
‘ekincare’
A Pioneer, making India Inc. healthy
Tech-benefits
Bene ts of Insurance Tech Companies
Insur-Tech
Technology Trends that will Shape the Insurance Industry
28
A r t i c l e
32
9. Featuring Brief
Company Name
Arvind Kaushal
Co-founder and CEO
Ekincare
John Mayn
Executive Director
Coverfox Insurance
Broking Pvt. Ltd
Dr. Noel Coutinho
Co-founder and
Chief Business Officer
Cogitate Technology Solutions was established with a vision to
be a leading provider of innovative and transformative digital
technology products for the insurance industry.
Coverfox is an IRDAI authorised insurance broking firm. It
started as a website back in 2013, with an aim to make
insurance simple.
Ekincare is a new-age, AI-driven integrated health benefits
platform helping organizations save up to 90% in healthcare
costs and lowering their employees' health insurance premiums.
Cogitate Technology
Solutions, India
Riskcovry
Mr Jaideep Chatterjee
Managing Director
msg Global Solutions
India Pvt Ltd
Sorabh Bhandari
Founder
As an SAP solution development partner for over 20 years, msg
Global brings expert knowledge to every one of its
engagements in accounting, finance, regulatory reporting,
performance management, and customer experience.
Riskcovry is building a financial infrastructure stack for
insurance distribution in India. As an Insurance-in-a-Box for
any company, it enables any insurance product from any
insurer across any customer engagement channel, holistically
and seamlessly.
12. Technology adoption in the
insurance industry has been
happening for a long time, and it
continues to evolve every day. Moving
from legacy applications to enterprise
business solutions that have evolved to a
cloud-based architecture creates better
resiliency and lowers the cost of
operations.
With pressure on insurance companies
to improve profitability and reduce the
cost per transaction, it is natural to adopt
cloud-based technologies to support
operational efficiency and business
growth. msg global is one company that
counts on giving supportive and robust
business solutions for its growth. The
company focuses on employee growth
and customer satisfaction. Mr Jaideep
Chatterjee, Managing Director of
msg global solutions India, is a
seasoned technology executive with
widespread experience in digital
transformation, modernization, drives
business and revenue targets, and has
successfully set up global competency
centres.
SolidFunctioning
Jaideep has over 25 years of experience
in SAP consulting, management, and
leadership roles, in some of the world’s
most admired IT organizations and has
had customers which are Fortune 100
companies. Therefore, it is not a surprise
that Jaideep decided to be associated
with a company that has been tightly
connected to SAP since its beginning in
2008. msg global solutions is a systems
integrator, software development
partner, and managed services provider
focused on SAP solutions for
accounting, finance, regulatory
reporting, performance management,
andcustomerexperience.
Operating from offices across 28
countries globally and growing, its
expert team helps customers achieve
operationalefficiencyandimprove
decision-making capabilities. While the
heart of msg global expertise is in the
financial services sector, its solutions are
utilizedinawiderangeof industries.
ExperienceThat BringsProgress
As an experienced industry specialist,
msg global is a knowledgeable partner
for all insurance companies. With
strategic consulting, established
standard software, and other intelligent
IT (Information Technology) solutions,
the company helps its clients with
i n f o r m a t i o n m a n a g e m e n t a n d
networking, customer-centric
customization, as well as the
standardization and digitization of their
processes.
With broad global experience, its
consultants are ready to support
customers in insurance, reinsurance, and
functional areas such as finance and risk,
technology, and analytics. The teams
help customers evaluate their current
landscape and provide technical and
functional guidance around SAP’s end-
to-end insurance and reinsurance
solutions. As an SAP co-development
partner,msgglobalcreatesindustry-
specific solutions that are marketed
exclusively as SAP Solutions
Extensions. It also develops and offers
the industry solutions to complement an
SAP strategy or work as a stand-alone
solution.
msg global’s Offerings
msg global supports the entire SAP
Business Suitefor theinsurance
msg global solutions
also develops and
offers the industry
solutions to complement
an SAP strategy or work
as a stand-alone solution
13. industry, from the front office customer
solution to the middle office work
engine to the back office operational
systems. Working in close cooperation
with its customers and industry partners,
msg global delivers implementation and
consulting services to help Insurers
achieve operational efficiency, meet
regulatory standards, and achieve digital
excellence.
Ambitious Goals
“Our company tagline is 'Passion.
People. Performance.' and it accurately
summarizes who we are. Passion is how
we approach our work – loving what we
do and joyfully delivering on our
promises. People make it all possible.
Our people are the best in the business
and provide the power to deliver our
mission and vision. Performance and
specifically ‘superlative performance’
is ourultimategoal,”says Jaideep.
With these taglines in mind, the
company is working towards its 2025
goals. Its focus on the insurance industry
is ready to support local customers on
their digital journey with its global
expertise and skilled insurance
professionals. As the company grows, it
willfurtherstrengthenitsrelationship
with SAP and ensure the two decades-
old relationship continues to serve its
customers.
FulfillingDemands
The challenges that financial institutions
face today are highly complex. Most
insurance companies are unable to fulfil
high market demands due to a lack of
timely knowledge and resources to
modify existing digital solutions to suit
the constantly changing customer
expectations.
Organizations are continuously
evolving, demanding innovative
solutions in core business and user
experience. A more data-centric
approach is becoming the new norm, in
which integration, consistency,
transparency, and real-time access to
financialdataarethefoundations.
We are here
to help customers
perform better
14. The key to success is identifying the best
solutions and consultants to help
navigate through the path ahead. This is
where msg global comes into play with
it’s completeinsuranceportfolio.
Enhancing Growth
Dynamic. Fun. Innovative. Creative.
Challenging. These are some of the
words people frequently use to describe
their careers at msg global. The
company encourages people to be
innovative and create fun at work. msg
global offers a high degree of freedom
for independent work, individualized
t r a i n i n g , a n d l o t s o f g r o w t h
opportunities.
Tech-Advancements
With technologies like Big Data,
Predictive Analytics, AI, and ML
(Machine Learning), Internet of Things,
BlockChain, Telematics, Chatbots, and
other emerging technologies, insurers
can custom-tailor offers to individual
users. It will gain higher ROI (Return on
Invest) and grow its customer base.With
growing databases and financial
information, cybersecurity also has a
vital role in making insurance
technology safer to use without any data
breaches.
We strive to
exceed expectations
in everything we do
15.
16. Delivering Future-ready, Digitally Accelerated Insurance
The insurance industry is ripe
for digital transformation. By
sheer market size, it is one of
the largest industries. InsurTech
companies are taking over sizable
market share from existing companies.
Changes in the industry are helping its
ancillary businesses to grow rapidly as
well – these businesses majorly include
data, service providers, and insurance
technology companies.
The balance of power is shifting more
towards the consumers who are
looking for highly personalized
products, real-time communication,
lower premiums, immediate service,
and freedom to choose the channel of
business. Digital transformation is an
outcome of evolving demands of a
smartphone, welding customers, and
tech-savvy millennials. This is even
more prudent now with the pandemic
and lockdowns fading out in-person
interactions.
The new trends are uprooting the
traditional business models forcing
insurance companies to augment their
existing workflows with the new
digital channels. The shift to more
transparent, faster, and easier
transactions and communication is a
key factor in driving the change in this
otherwise complex and slow-paced
industry. One such company with these
key factors is Cogitate.
Over seventy-five years of insurance
knowledge and experience combined
with its superior technology talent,
gives Cogitate the ability to create
innovative digital insurance software.
In an exclusive interview with Insights
Success, Arvind Kaushal, Co-
founder, and CEO of Cogitate, shares
the dynamics of the InsurTech space.
Following are the highlights of the
interview.
Please brief us about Cogitate.
We are a leading insurance technology
innovator that helps various property
and casualty insurance providers
accelerate the digitalization of their
business and prepare for growth. Our
transformative digital insurance
products and service delivery solutions
integrate seamlessly with core and
legacy systems to add new digital
channels and modernize user
experience across the insurance
industry value chain.
Our flagship offering, the Cogitate
DigitalEdge Insurance Platform, is a
powerful technology platform for
insurance companies, MGAs,
wholesale brokers, and program
managers of all sizes. It helps them
build an omni-channel insurance
ecosystem to integrate multiple
channels, distribution partners,
customers, and any third-party services
to modernize existing processes,
simplify distribution. We provide an
exceptional customer experience. With
the full power of digitalization,
customers can strengthen existing core
systems, increase speed-to-market, and
reduce operating expenses.
What made you venture into the
Insurance Tech Sector?
We are ‘insurance people.’ We have a
very strong foundation of insurance
domain knowledge and experience as
our leadership team has successfully
run various insurance businesses for
decades. In fact, we began as a captive
technology solutions provider to
address the digitalization needs of our
parent company Insurance House.
With our comprehensive experience
and domain knowledge, we have a
strong grasp of the issues, challenges,
and changes in the industry and
corresponding technology solutions to
address them.
Since the challenges are the same
across the industry, there is a huge
demand for our solutions. The demand
is among insurance businesses of every
size and in any position within the
insurance value chain. The sheer size
Cogitate DigitalEdge
Platform is a
stack of powerful
technologies built
for ‘Customer-First’
business models
of modern insurance
“
“
India's Most Innovative Insurance Tech Companies
November 2021 | 14 | www.insightssuccess.in
17. of the US insurance market makes our
venture more exciting and fuller of
potential.
What kind of offerings do you
provide to your clients?
Our next-generation technology
products and solutions are helping
insurance carriers, MGAs and
wholesalers, program administrators,
and agents to accelerate digitalization
and transform their business. Today we
have some of the leading players of the
US insurance market as our customers.
Our flagship product, DigitalEdge, is a
full-scale digital insurance platform. It
helps insurance companies of various
types and sizes to reimagine their
business models, realign their
processes, and transform the user
experience for a smooth transition to
the digital era. Solutions built with
Cogitate DigitalEdge Platform are
helping our customers build a fully
integrated digital insurance ecosystem
without replacing their core and legacy
systems.
Our customers have seen numerous
benefits. It includes reduced
operational costs, enhanced efficiency,
productivity, increasing speed to
market, faster communication and
response time, and improved customer
experience and engagement. In
addition, they can add more channels
to their existing ones to reach out to
wider target markets.
The Cogitate Digital Insurance is a
point of sales and service solution. It
offers an array of insurance
technologies, from digital sales and
service infrastructure, integrated
mobile apps and chatbots to artificial
intelligence, machine learning, and
advanced analytics.
Cogitate Distribution Management
solutions comprise agent (producer)
portals to equip insurance agents with
on-demand access to critical business
information and capabilities to add
A Dynamic Leader
Arvind Kaushal began his career as a software consultant in
Mumbai, India, with Wipro in 1996. There he provided consulting
services to many of Wipro's global clients, including Bank of
London, Singapore Airport Authority, ABB, and Canon. In 1999,
Arvind moved to the US. He consulted with companies creating
eCommerce platforms during the dot com era. In 2000 he began
his tenure with Delta Air Lines, and for eight years, he ventured into
various technology management roles, including architect for
Delta.com.
He has also served as the Chief Financial Officer and Chief
Technology Officer for Insurance House Holdings, Inc. It owns a
leading regional insurance intermediary and insurance carrier
serving the Mid-Atlantic and South-eastern United States.
Arvind is active in the insurance industry and participates in various
insurance trade association committees. He received his BS in
Electronics and Communications Engineering from Bangalore
University and his MBA from Goizueta Business School at Emory
University. He led the founding and formation of Cogitate in May
2012.
Arvind Kaushal
Co-founder and CEO
November 2021 | 15 | www.insightssuccess.in
18. new agents online in order to move
into new territories quickly.
The Cogitate Intelligent Claims
Solutions include a bouquet of modern
technology products that easily
integrate with existing claims
management and other systems. It
includes a fully digital, web and
mobile-enabled, First Notice of Loss
(FNOL) solution. Artificial Intelligence
and Machine Learning is a driven fraud
detection and analysis solution –
Cogitate claims fraud network analysis
and an innovative attorney demand
letter and litigation management
solution.
What are the best features of your
products/solutions that are really
appreciated by your customers?
The most significant advantage of
DigitalEdge is that it is a Core System
Agnostic, i.e., the capability to
integrate with existing core and legacy
systems that insurance companies are
not prepared to replace.
DigitalEdge platform integrates
seamlessly with clients’ core systems,
insurance carrier systems, and API
libraries. It is pre-integrated with 15+
third-party data prefill partners through
our proprietary adaptable API
acceleration.
DigitalEdge is equipped with Low
Code No Code capabilities allowing
business users to configure,
reconfigure, test, and deploy new
products. Its rates and adds new states
and lines of business without any
assistance from IT teams. It is
microservices enabled for flexibility
and scalability. Mobile apps and
chatbots ensure quick and real-time
communication and superior customer
engagement.
Built-in advanced analytics gives
valuable insights about customer
buying behavior, customer profiling,
product and policy design, risk
analytics, predictive models to the
users. Our state-of-the-art insurance
technology solutions heavily use AI
and ML to transform insurance across
all functions – claims processing, fraud
detection, underwriting, customer
service, sales, and marketing.
How was your firm/business affected
in these pandemic times, and what
were the steps were taken by you to
curb the damages, all the while
helping your clients and maintaining
the safety of your employees?
The last couple of years have been
challenging for all of us. Being a
technology provider, we were able to
adapt to the changes quickly. In fact,
we were one of the earliest adaptors of
work from home, even before the
lockdowns were announced. Like
everyone else, initially, we faced
challenges in communication,
connectivity, and employee
engagement.
Our new style of remote collaboration
and working from home was effective,
and we were able to service all our
client requirements without any
hiccup. We optimized the opportunities
available to help build digital
capabilities for our customers, both
existing and new. In fact, during the
pandemic, we were able to expand our
clientele with our superior quality of
service and innovative insurance
technology. We clearly came up as a
winning organization.
What would you like to advice the
young generation of entrepreneurs
and enthusiasts who want to venture
into the insurance industry?
The insurance industry is a great place
to be right now. With the futuristic
vision of our team, we have been able
to help our customers transform their
business through technological
innovation. The accelerated need for
digitalization of insurance has brought
in abundant opportunities for modern
and innovative technology products
and service providers.
You need to keep reimagining
traditional business models and
identify avenues to introduce
innovation. At the same time, you must
keep delivering excellence,
continuously outperforming yourself.
The key to this is continuous
improvement – taking small
incremental steps towards success.
Where do you envision your
firm/business to be in the long run,
and what are your future goals?
How do you plan to embrace the
changes happening in the Insurance
Tech Sector?
Our vision has always been to help
insurers accelerate digitalization and
transform their business models with
our innovative product and service
delivery solutions across the insurance
value chain. Our flagship solution
DigitalEdge is feature-rich and
supports various personal and
commercial lines of business.
We will continue to expand
DigitalEdge with more lines and more
features that will help insurers create
stronger and better digital ecosystems
to keep up with the future changes in
the industry. A few of the avenues on
cards are integrations with IoT devices,
new service partners, and carriers,
increasing use of AI/ML (artificial
intelligence/machine learning) for
intelligent underwriting, in addition to
increasing accuracy of our fraud
detection, and analytics even further.
We hope to add more customers of
varying sizes. In the coming years, we
also plan to expand beyond the United
States to other mature insurance
markets such as Canada, Europe, and
Australia. We are also expanding our
teams both in the US and India to
support our growth plan.
November 2021 | 16 | www.insightssuccess.in
19.
20. Technology
Trends
that will Shape
the
Insurance
Industry
nnovation with widespread
Idevelopments in technology has
resulted in the financial stability of
the industries globally, with
immeasurable efficiency gains.
Insurance companies are not an
exception to these technologies for the
developments and upgrades with some
new methods within providing
services, opportunities for data
collection, and fraud detection, which
can lead to and create better risk
management facilities. These upgrades
within technology introduced new
methods in the insurance industry
which are referred to as ‘Insur-Tech’.
Let’s explore the technological trends
and developments that are leading to a
drastic change and will shape the
insurance industry globally.
1. Personalized products and digital
models.
The digital model will create usage-
based insurance lifestyle products,
more significant than before.
Customers will refer to these
personalized insurance covers that will
be cheaper if compared to those
universal policy options that are
currently available. This will generate
more sales and eventually it will attract
more customers to the insurance
company. Digital models will make
intermediaries in the insurance value
chain, marked by recessive and
obsolete human efforts.
In addition to that, flexible insurance
covers, micro and peer-to-peer policies
November 2021 | 18 | www.insightssuccess.in
22. will become sustainable for the long
term. Reinsurers will provide risk
capital directly to the digital brands,
and the regulatory framework will
have the capacity for a shorter value
chain.
Lifestyle apps will re-imagine the
insurer-insured relationship as an
application programming interface that
will enable the creation of interest-
based offerings for the customers, as
companies can combine data from
multiple sources. Understanding
customer behaviours from this data
will lead to precise risk calculations,
personalized premiums, and value on a
sustainable source for improved
customer support, brand loyalty, and
eventually reduced false claims.
2. Artificial Intelligence and
enhanced robotic automation for
faster claims.
The robotic automated process will
help to increase the transaction
capacity for faster claims, that will be
driven by new data channels, better
data processing capabilities and
advancements with the active support
of artificial intelligence. It will also
result in a decrease in the paperwork
and brokers, its behavioural
fundamentals will lead to minimizing
the frauds and reducing time, costs,
and efforts.
Virtual assistance will also be on the
rise to automate policy services and
claim management for faster and
improved customer service. The bots
will help the customers with the
policies according to their interests and
benefits.
Artificial Intelligence and Robotic
automation will intensely impact and
improve business outcomes with better
customer service, cost optimization,
efficient execution of transactions with
improved techniques. AI and
automation will transform insurers into
active risk managers.
3. Enhanced analysis and pro-
activeness.
With premiums becoming highly
personalized and enabled by new
sources such as the internet and
interaction of data with mobile-enabled
apps and wearables, the market is
ready to grow strongly in the next few
years with the help of these connected
apps. Property and Casualty insurers
will be able to fetch real-time data of
their customers with an accuracy of
assistance in any emergency. This will
help the insurers to pro-actively
respond to their customers and assist
them with their personalized policy.
In the property estimations and
analysis sector, the usage of drone and
satellite imaging will eventually help
the insurers with high-quality images
and real-time fundamentals of that
particular property in case of a natural
calamity. The advanced analysis will
be utilized to vigorously segment users
and their needs, model behaviours and
detect exceptions, optimize business
strategies, and recognize innovative
growth opportunities.
4. InsurTech collaborations.
Insur-Tech firms have been actively
showing significant growth in the
sector of the automobile,
homeownership, and cyber insurance.
This will eventually result in
stimulating the traditional insurers to
adapt and work with technological
capabilities from or directly partner
with InsurTech companies as there will
be an increasing demand for new
products and innovative services.
Overall, this will lead to a boom in the
insurance industry with Insur-Tech
companies setting up their large
customer base, managing their funding,
and domain, with expertise. With these
developments, customer services will
be improved with quality assured
offerings.
5. Mainstreaming blockchain.
The need for the high volume of data
related to customers to be processed in
real-time makes it easy, also results in
reliable data transfer across
organizations and their various
stakeholders.
Blockchain technology provides secure
data management across multiple
interfaces and devices without loss of
reliability. It also helps to maintain
management services, underwriting to
claims processing, monitoring frauds
and data availability, with additional
benefits like reduced operational costs,
and maintaining smart contracts.
The journey ahead.
Developments will happen and
technology will effortlessly boost these
developments, with additional
improvement in cloud secured storage
of the data and better communication
services, insurance companies can
carry out their operations in an easy
manner, improving the customer
service experience at the same time
with such technological trends that will
shape the future of insurance industry.
- Abhishek Joshi
November 2021 | 20 | www.insightssuccess.in
23.
24. Making Insurance Procedure Swift and Tech-savvy
Adecade ago, customers in
India who took insurance
policies were facing serious
issues. This was because of a lack of
proper information on insurance
products as mis-selling was gaining
pace rapidly. In the last decade, during
the period 2000 to 2008, as the country
was gaining traction and growing
economically tremendously, the Indian
Insurance Industry tightened its grip.
There was a complete disruption of the
private sector insurers venturing and
gaining importance in the country then.
They got a taste of the cutthroat
competition during times when only a
few large public sector insurers
controlled the insurance. Starting of
this new digital era saw the
proliferation of new insurance products
and relevant information. It promoted
the unbridled growth of the insurance
industry in India.
This is when the concept of selling
insurance online came into existence
with few other market players in the
industry. It was to navigate the
possibilities in offering easy insurance
to the customers. That is when
Coverfox, a Mumbai-based InsurTech
platform, was founded in 2013 with a
vision to ‘Make Insurance Simple’ and
take the opportunity to comprehend the
possibilities arising in the Indian
Insurance Ecosystem.
India's Most Innovative Insurance Tech Companies
In an exclusive interview with Insights
Success, John Mayne, Executive
Director of Coverfox, tells us about
the company’s journey. He also gives
insights into the insurance tech
industry.
Following are the highlights of the
interview:
Please describe to us about Coverfox
in detail.
We offer effortless, quick, and
unperturbed online insurance broking
services, having collaborated with
more than 50+ insurance providers that
offer the top policies and plans at the
possible paramount premiums. Our
service platter caters to Motor, Health,
and Term insurance products currently.
Varun Dua and Devendra Rane
founded the company. Currently, we
are under the leadership and vision of
great industry veterans like Sanjib Jha,
John Mayne, and Piyush Ranjan. We
have reinvented ourselves completely
under their leadership. We offer to
compare and select from different
insurers with advice on best coverage
based on their requirements for
multiple products and claims
assistance. It is run by its parent
company, Glitterbug Technologies, a
tech organization.
What made you venture into the
Insurance Tech Sector?
With the advent of many insurances
and tech platform players, we had a
clear vision to ‘Make Insurance
Simple’ for our buyers. In today’s era,
the liberalisation of technology has
significantly shifted from traditional
policy covers to digitalisation of
Insurtech. As a result of this evolution,
we have seen some major players like
ourselves and other players in the
market come into existence with an
aim to get India insured and
empowered by amalgamating the three
most essential aspects - tech, ease, and
accessibility.
The Insurtech companies, thus, are
now providing a wide range of choices
to the consumers giving them an
opportunity to filter out the best policy
as per their income brackets, insurance
needs, policy benefits, etc.
We at Coverfox try to understand the
market gaps arising in the Indian
healthcare insurance ecosystem. In
integration with data science and
machine learning tools, the cloud-
native platform recommends the best
policies to customers and paves a
smooth way for them to make
decisions accordingly. Insurance has
evolved into Insurtech 2.0, which is
redefining the entire insurance
landscape.
What kind of offerings do you
provide to your clients?
The prime objective of Coverfox is to
November 2021 | 22 | www.insightssuccess.in
25. An Exemplifying Leader
John Mayne is an insurance industry veteran and a senior professional. He brings in more than 27 years of experience and
has spanned his working career across the myriad insurance, banking, and micro-finance sectors. He has successfully run
large profit centres and SBUs across various business lines in India and Africa.
He has been responsible for developing strategic plans for business growth, start-ups, infrastructure development, market
expansion, product development, and launches. He has successfully led large teams of diverse employees and has a proven
track record in building franchises, delivering business results, and general management.
He brings extensive experience across products in Insurance, Retail Banking, Micro Finance, Pension, and Asset
Management. He has always been a strategic thinker with an analytical bend of mind and strong execution bias. He
possesses very strong communication skills and people management abilities.
He has the opportunity and exposure to understand the financial services marketplace and environment across India, Sri
Lanka, Bangladesh, and West Africa. Currently, he is in the leadership team of Coverfox, being appointed as the Executive
Director. He has donned many hats in his professional career and continues to do so.
It is our aim to
provide the best
services possible
at our platform
and constantly
thrive for a
greater customer
experience
“
“
John Mayne
Executive Director
November 2021 | 23 | www.insightssuccess.in
26. create a seamless experience for our
customers through our different
platforms and have an automated
insurance experience for the initial
buyers, the next rising generation, and
India’s other demographic areas like
the rural ones.
We enable every customer to compare
and select from various insurers with
advisory on unsurpassed coverage
matching their requirements from the
helm of products and claims assistance.
Our service platter offers motor (both
personal and commercial vehicles such
as taxi and GCV- Goods Carrying
Vehicle), health insurance, term life
insurance, travel insurance, corona
kavach, super top-up, personal accident
insurance, critical illness cover, and
ULIP insurance products on our
platform.
We are a fully cloud-native platform
that empowers modern application
development using complex
technologies and have a microservices-
based backend. The technology allows
creating new products and unification
with negligible intervention.
What kind of challenges have you
faced while entering the Insurance
Tech Sector?
The insurance companies made huge
profits when the policies were
surrendered, and the insurance industry
was looked down upon as they were
not very customer-centric. Hence, it
was all about going beyond the
spectrum. It was about making easy
accessibility for the customers to have
a seamless experience when they buy
an insurance product.
For decades, insurance has been sold
as a push product by agents in India.
The use of exceptional data and
advanced analytics have helped to
create a bridge between the
behavioural characteristics of
customers and their spending habits –
true fodder for machine learning
models. We started as a pure call centre
selling insurance products assisting the
customers in purchasing the insurance
products. Later, we developed it into a
fully-equipped insurance aggregator.
In the early days, we moved our call
centre to a completely online model,
and it helped us keep the lights on.
Since then, we have managed to make
everything fully ready for the online
world. We built flows to make
telemedical, video-based, or e-medical
flows for health and term flows.
We have increased effort on the
product side to move into a fully
digital sales model, which minimizes
call centre effort. Be it chatbots, AI-
based voice bots, Machine Learning-
based document scanning, end-to-end
digital flows, lead scoring, etc. We also
released an app to make it seamless for
users to buy insurance. We do not call
customers who reach out to us on the
app. We already have 100K installs on
the app with upwards of one crore of
business since launch, which was four
months ago.
How was your firm/business affected
in these pandemic times? What steps
did you take to curb the damages
while helping your clients and
maintaining the safety of your
employees, all the time?
Insurance as a sector was not entirely
impacted. In fact, it brought awareness
about health plans. Our journey during
the pandemic has been a smooth sail. It
has weathered the Covid storm very
well. As per the government
guidelines, during the COVID-19
pandemic, we were prepared to move
to digital and online ways of following
procedures from the beginning itself.
We were also committed to the safety
and health of our employees, keeping
in mind the precautionary measures
that the government declared.
We took measures like shifting the
entire call centre and the rest of the
employees to work from home.
Especially the challenge was to shift
the calling lines, and dialler, etc.
However, we did it with the help of
cloud technology. We had arranged a
vaccination drive for our employees
and their families. We continued to
maintain less than 50% occupancy in
the office premises throughout the
work-from-office scenario.
Our main aim was to maintain
sanitation procedures, health
screenings, self-reporting of symptoms
by employees, contact tracing,
temperature screening at worksite
entry, and restricted travel for non-
employees onsite. The group insurance
that included health plans for every
employee had COVID safety benefits.
We ensured keeping our employee
safety on priority.
What would you like to advise the
young generation of entrepreneurs
and enthusiasts who want to venture
into the Insurance Tech Sector?
Today the era is digital, and we need to
unbundle insurance presently. The
November 2021 | 24 | www.insightssuccess.in
27. insurtech players are reimagining the
underpenetrated sector for a complete
digital makeover providing 360-degree
support for its buyers to purchase the
policies. The final frontier for
insurance innovation is to supplement
the basic insurance approach.
There is ample scope for the
development and extreme growth in
the insurance industry. There is a
complete shift in the thought process of
the budding customers, competitors,
and other market players that are
challenging the old business models
and their existence. With the advent of
this evolution, the insurers are already
trying to adapt to the changes in the
insurance ecosystem. Typically, the
customers need three essential folds -
transparencies, speed, and a hassle-free
claim settlement without having to run
behind the insurance agents.
Where do you envision your
firm/business in the long run, and
what are your future goals? How do
you plan to embrace the changes
happening in the Insurance Tech
Sector?
We have stood tall, bearing all the
seasons with many challenges in the
past, and our core team is trying
spectacularly to strengthen and
leverage advanced tech. We want to
reimagine an insurance eco-space from
assisted to non-assisted models,
independent of call centres, building a
one-stop solution for all insurance
needs for the ease of the customers.
The key thing we want to practice for
the future is - ‘Making Insurance
Simple’. Helping and guiding
customers understand insurance more
seamlessly than ever by providing
compelling content on our platform,
sharing video guides, decoding the
insurance jargon through informational
blogs and newsletters, chatbots and
voice bots, and online forums. We want
to evaluate, choose, and purchase. We
are capacitating our customers and
sharing all the necessary information to
help them make an informed choice.
They can also purchase within seconds
through robust product journeys and
end-to-end online flows on app and
web portals. Smart recommendations
and easy automation: A deep learning
model to recommend the best plan
basis customer needs and
demographics.
Choosing from the trusted Coverfox
platform (both app and web) where the
AI-led intuitive UI/UX may help users
make an informed insurance purchase
within minutes. The company is on a
very sound footing now. We have gross
margin profitability on all product
lines, and we would like to continue
always moving with this profitability
on our radar.
Diversification into new market - Our
current and future roadmap also has
embedded insurance use cases that can
become the gold standard for the future
path forward for insurance. Making it
easy for customers to visualize the
simplicity of providing an integrated
experience will reduce sales cycles
with large-scale distributors.
Outlook towards the evolving
insurance ecosystem - Embedded
insurance is a big play towards this. It
will allow us to co-create new
insurance products with insurance
companies and be embedded in many
workflows, reducing buying friction
and increasing product-market fit.
These products would be digitally
native and would be super easy to sell
online or in a paperless world. It would
also allow legacy insurance companies
to compete with the new-age digital
companies.
We have braced ourselves for the
complete technology shift. Currently,
the industry is experiencing the
change, and our long-term focused
plan is to get India insured and
empowered by building at the
intersection of tech, ease, and access.
The growth protuberance for the Indian
insurance ecosystem looks to have a lot
of potential. However, this scale will
be unlocked and unbundled through
Insurtech innovations. We are working
on the need-gap of our customers,
making it 10x easier for easy insurance
purchase. We would want to disrupt the
insurance industry by making it a
seamless experience for the customers.
We want it seamless from an assisted
model to a non-assisted one, where the
customer will be able to buy insurance
products independently.
November 2021 | 25 | www.insightssuccess.in
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29.
30. nsur-Tech is a trend word nowadays where we can find a variety of
Itechnologies that are aligned together to transform the traditional insurance
companies. Many insurers have already transformed and are operating
digitally to offer convenience and security with a companion to their customers.
November 2021 | 28 | www.insightssuccess.in
32. Internet, improved communication
assets, drones, the blockchain, smart
contract, and artificial intelligence have
already transformed the workflow of
the insurance companies by improving
their customer experience with quality
assured risk management. As the Insur-
Tech is contributing and successfully
fulfilling the requirements of their
customers, here are a few of the
benefits of Insurance tech companies:
1. Development of fitness apps and
wearables
There are many benefits of maintaining
body health and fitness. There are some
wearables and fitness apps that can
help people to maintain weight, food
habits, track their exercise routine, and
much more. The biggest advantage of
these fitness apps is that they can
contribute to keeping people healthy
and eventually, save a huge amount on
health insurance.
Various insurance companies are
making their way into wearables as
they can help their customers to stay fit
and healthy. Companies are also
offering their customers discounts and
benefits on their services if customers
meet a required fitness goal.
2. Preventing frauds
Fraud can happen anytime and
anywhere, sometimes without anyone
even noticing it. When frauds happen
in insurance companies, it eventually
costs the company with a huge amount
of loss and creates a negative image of
the company. Since Insur-tech came
into existence, insurance companies
have established a framework,
developed, and adapted recently
enhanced automation, and advanced
analysis that is helping the companies
with real-time data, resulting in the
prevention of frauds.
Adapting digital signage
Digital signage technology is
efficiently reducing fake insurance
account activation and hence fraud. For
an instance, in the case of a claim on
said date, when insurance is purchased
after the accident happened, it can be
simply identified and taken into action
when verifying the asset digitally and
confirming the purchase of the policy
that is bought after the incident took
place.
Data analysis
This process helps to analyse the real-
time data in-depth with precise data
mining tools. Predictive analysis helps
to improve the fraud detection process,
helping in the prevention of claim pay-
outs. In-depth analysis of transactions
of the claims reduces the chances of
fraud from happening which helps in
better risk management.
3. Accurate insurance cost
The number of internet-connected
devices and sensors are increasing
significantly over time, which has
resulted in a huge impact on the
availability of real-time information
that insurers can use for better pricing.
On the other hand, digital imaging, and
usage of drones is increasing and it has
drastically improved how insurance
policies are written due to any natural
calamity. Satellite imaging has made it
possible to monitor the area where
drones are prohibited and give a clear
picture to monitor the situation and
mention the underwriting cost to the
damage.
4. Efficient billing process
Billing systems are not only integrated
but now they can accept the alternative
payment methods which allow the
customer flexibility and make the
billing procedure efficient. The
automated systems can inform or
remind the customers of approaching
due dates, lowering the chances of
defaults, or missing the premium.
5. Specialized structure of insurance
Each and every insurance has a
different structure and factors that
differ in every insurance policy. When
insurance agents require to gather
information to showcase it to their
clients, the internet comes to better use.
However, machine learning is vitally
important here as it holds the capacity
to learn and analyse various patterns
and identify suitable information and
plans with the help of the data that is
provided by the customers. This has
helped the companies to provide
appropriate schemes as per the needs
of the customer, significantly
improving their customer services.
Driving the success
Emerging technology has created a
suitable environment for every industry
and now these are some of the benefits
of Insur-tech to the insurance
companies. Resulting in improved
services with fewer efforts, it has
created stability between the insurer
and the customer, where the customer
is likely to stay longer, and the
company can maintain a good record
and provide their customers with their
service in the best way possible.
- Abhishek Joshi
November 2021 | 30 | www.insightssuccess.in
33.
34. ®
A Pioneer, making India Inc. healthy
Dr. Noel Coutinho has over
24+ years of experience,
most of which have been in
the health and life insurance
space. From health
management organisations
to broking and reinsurance,
he has been involved in
product design, risk
management, and services,
giving him a close view of
insurance, its nuances, and
the impact on insurers and
policyholders over the years.
ekincare
aims to be
a one-stop
solution for
clients
November 2021 | 32 | www.insightssuccess.in
35. Healthy employees make their
company healthy. Mandatory
Group Insurances is just one
facet of the entire Employee
Healthcare Ecosystem, which was
broken and disparate earlier.
Then came ekincare. And starting
from a medical records platform, soon
it became the B2B only provider in the
corporate health benefits and group
insurance area.
Today with products like Care Link -
India’s largest cashless OPD network,
Data Sense - Leveraging AI in real-
time health analytics and solutions for
Enterprise, Start-ups, Insurers and
Brokers, and services from online
Health Checks, e-pharmacy, gyms and
fitness centres, mental health, to
telemedicine, the company has grown
into the only one on a mission to make
India Inc. healthy.
To date, ekincare has not only been
associated with more than 400
companies helping more than a million
of their employees, but it has also
administered more than 3000 COVID-
19 vaccinations, completed more than
35,000 COVID-19 tests, and serviced
more than 250 organisations, including
many big names in the industry during
these trying times.
Let us hear more about this pioneering
firm, from its Cofounder and Chief
Business Officer, Dr. Noel Coutinho,
in his exclusive interview with us.
Describe us about ekincare in detail.
Starting in 2015, ekincare began its
journey as a medical records platform.
The idea was to bring order and
standardization to India's disparate,
broken healthcare ecosystem with the
help of AI, deep analytics, and our
patented technology.
However, we soon identified a more
challenging problem in the corporate
health benefits and group insurance
space, thus pivoting to become a B2B-
only provider, and never looked back.
With services like telemedicine,
pharmacy, mental health, and fitness,
we made the natural progression to
become India’s most advanced
enterprise-ready health benefits
platform.
What made you venture into the
Insurance Tech Sector?
I have been a part of the insurance
sector since 2001. The insurance
sector, especially in India, needs to
address various market requirements
differently. This is true not only for the
product but also for the service aspect
of insurance. Nearly a decade ago, at
an actuarial conference, I had
emphasised this while speaking on
innovation in health insurance.
Distribution, access, and fulfilment are
crucial to insurance as much as the risk
carrying product itself, if not more.
The only way to personalize and scale
every key aspect is by the use of tech.
Having identified the gaps and problem
statements through years of
experience, the only way to give back
to the industry was to take the plunge
from being traditional and mainstream
in approach to doing something
definingly different by leveraging tech
to do the heavy-lifting for insurance.
What kind of offerings do you
provide to your clients?
In the pursuit of being the one stop
solution for our clients, we offer a
range of services such as Vaccinations,
Annual Health Checks (AHCs), e-
Pharmacy services, Telemedicine
services, including 24x7 access to
doctors, among others.
What kind of challenges have you
faced while entering the Insurance
Tech Sector?
First, insurers are good at
understanding and carrying risk, but
they are definitely not good at building
and innovating on tech, and rightly so.
Hence, it is important for insurers to
focus on what they do best and leave
the building of tech to those who
specialize in it. It is obviously about
time, money, and effort, i.e., the
resources one can dedicate to their
specialized and non-specialized areas
of business and manage it on an
ongoing basis to keep it up-to-date. A
half-baked poorly maintained solution
is worse than not having one!
Secondly, tech opens boundaries and is
expected to break the ceiling, while
India's Most Innovative Insurance Tech Companies
November 2021 | 33 | www.insightssuccess.in
36. insurance tends to think conservatively
due to the nature of the business and
risk. If that mindset enters the
discussion, leveraging tech becomes a
non-starter. Hence, having a thought
leader champion the discussion
becomes critical. A technical person
will never let go of the baggage!
Lastly, insurers need to see technology
as a solution that helps them
differentiate and grow the business by
bringing in their layer of experience,
expertise, and philosophy over what
the tech offers. This could be in the
areas of distribution, underwriting,
operations, and business philosophy.
Often, insurers want to own the entire
process, making it prohibitive for both
the insurer and tech partner.
How was your firm/business affected
in these pandemic times, and what
were the steps you took to curb the
damages while helping your clients
and maintaining the safety of your
employees?
It was a challenging time for ekincare.
With such a large number of people
facing health issues, it was a testing
time for our teams to focus on our
clients' health and well-being needs.
Even during the country-wide
lockdown, employee health was the
utmost priority.
Employees across all our clients were
encouraged to undertake EAP sessions
to improve their mental health during
such a stressful time. Online doctor
consultations and RT-PCR tests were
made available to all users at the
earliest possible time.
Once the COVID vaccines were
approved and made available,
vaccination drives for organizations
were the priority. Now, with COVID
cases going down, we have begun the
“Back to Office” initiative to help HR
leaders seamlessly and efficiently track
their employees’ COVID-19
vaccination and infection details. This
will help them follow the government’s
recommendations and bring their
employees back to the workplace as
soon as possible.
What would you like to advise the
young generation of entrepreneurs
and enthusiasts who want to venture
into the Insurance Tech Sector?
The opportunity is great. However, we
don’t need to “solve for everything”
when facing a problem, but we need to
solve for some part of it at a time and
solve it well. It is an evolving process,
and as long as one is focused on the
problem areas and doesn’t get
distracted, one can do a great service to
the industry. I believe this is universal
in application.
Where do you envision your
firm/business in the long run, and
what are your future goals? How do
you plan to embrace the changes
happening in the Insurance Tech
Sector?
We want to be the best in what we do,
and we are leaders in our space in
India. In a relatively shorter span and
with much fewer resources, we have
already done what many larger
organizations have failed to do to date.
Kudos to the team for that. Expanding
to other markets in the region and
knocking doors in more mature
markets is on the cards since we
already have inbound interest coming
from these regions.
Change is what makes it interesting
and challenging. New is welcome, but
our focus to make a long-term impact
will remain the same. We have always
preferred that over short-term gains. It
has helped us set a path for ourselves.
What is the current industrial
scenario of the Insurance Tech
Sector?
The InsureTech sector is booming.
Many startups are working on similar
problem areas, and several are working
on unique problem areas. The ultimate
success will depend on the approach
and focus of the entrepreneur and
team. Distractions like getting into
rabbit holes, trying to find a quick-fix
solution for every scenario, and
picking too many or incorrect problem
statements can lead to failure. One also
has to weigh what kind of a solution is
being offered – is it indeed tech or a
“jugaad” with just a tech façade?
November 2021 | 34 | www.insightssuccess.in
