Pune Inc: Bootstrapped insurance broker plans to increase network through rural India

Earlier this year, IRDA had spoken of the importance of increasing insurance penetration in rural India catering to agricultural and allied needs. The organisation had added that the majority of the rural population was not aware of the concept of insurance, its advantages or how to go about it. “The penetration level in rural India is around 1-2 per cent. If we subtract flagship programmes from the Government of India, it would be around zero per cent. What we realised is that there were demands in rural India to be insured but they wanted a simple and affordable product. We are working with insurance companies to co-create such products,” says Roy Choudhury.

The target villages are in UP, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana at present. “If you look at states such as UP and Maharashtra, there are deep rural populations that are untouched by insurance,” says Kukunuri. Digisafe calculated the number of blocks in each state and, now, their manpower is present in 65 blocks. Slowly, they plan to move into other states and villages.

“Digisafe will empower rural people including farmers by supporting them to make informed decisions and increasing employment opportunities and revenue. It has been conceptualised on the decade-long extensive research and analysis done by its founding team who explored the crop insurance segment across several states in India and concluded their observational analysis in a localised survey under the flagship agri insurance scheme,” says Shrey.

The company’s provisions include DigiOne, a partnership programme between Digisafe and channel partners that will identify, train and develop a team of certified point-of-sale persons for insurance distribution through a combination of physical and digital modes; 1 Gram Insurance, which aims to extend insurance cover to every household of a village; and the Mera Assistant App for rural people. Through these instruments, the company aims to become “a complete support ecosystem for rural Indians by ensuring a high-speed claim settlement and end-to-end assistance at their doorstep”.