Growth is often messy. There is no defined path, and success emerges from a series of bold experiments. In the last ten years, India's fintech sector has navigated a journey through optimism, skepticism, resurgence, regulation, and eventual maturity. It is today the poster-child of technology-led startups. Soon, it would be difficult to distinguish between fintechs and financial institutions. The lines have already started blurring.
Much of this success in Fintech, however, has come in the payments, investments and lending. UPI has been transformational in how India transacts. Investments have been transformed over the last decade with the dominance of digital-only stock brokers. And digital-first lenders have expanded the market by leveraging technology for both underwriting and distribution. The one pillar of financial services that is yet to experience its ‘UPI moment’ is Insurance. Today, it is poised for an industry-wide digital transformation.
Several startups, and even traditional players in the industry, recognizing the need for a technology-led overhaul, have entered the Insurtech space. Most companies, however, resemble a tech-enabled avatar of a traditional insurance company or an insurance distributor. Tech innovation that can propel the entire ecosystem forward seems to be missing - and this is the challenge that a six-year-old Insurtech has taken up. Riskcovry is building the infrastructure for digital insurance distribution in India. They are attempting to standardize the digital communication rails across the industry - so that multiple insurers and distributors can seamlessly integrate and create digital user experiences for insurance that are as seamless as digital payments.
“We took the payment gateway approach to solve for insurance distribution” says Chiranth Patil, co-founder, Riskcovry. “For the insurance industry to maintain double-digit growth, and achieve the lofty ambitions of increasing insurance penetration across the country - technology needs to play a central role. All stakeholders across the industry need to not just digitally upgrade, but also digitally align. At Riskcovry, we’re building an industry-scale digital infrastructure to enable this alignment between insurers, distributors and all other stakeholders of the ecosystem. The objective is to create the underlying digital infrastructure, which can be used by any insurer or distributor for a digital GTM.”
Asif CH, CTO, Riskcovry added “We’ve built a multi-layer technology stack with an API-first approach. We use a micro-services architecture to keep the platform flexible and adept for enterprise implementation. The platform is built as a combination of de-coupled modules that can come together to address any digital GTM use-cases. The core Unified APIs are layered with front end journeys in the form of PWAs and SDKs. Added to that, our no-code configurators are able to bring together and standardize experience across multiple insurers & products.”
Riskcovry seems to have identified a critical problem faced by the entire industry. As the platform evolved, it has found takers across the spectrum. Riskcovry is integrated with over 35 insurance companies - both private and PSUs - and offers more than 170 insurance products via its Unified APIs. These products span all insurance types - health, motor, life, general - that can be offered to individuals by the insurers or regulated insurance intermediaries.
“The trust built by intermediaries is crucial for the growth of the insurance industry. But technology is required to leverage this trust at scale, enhance accessibility, and ensure seamless last-mile delivery of insurance products. Riskcovry’s platform addresses this need by creating an end-to-end integrated solution, digitizing the entire value chain of insurance delivery. For us at Bandhan Life, where we are committed to making life insurance accessible to all, leveraging such technology is key to fulfilling this mission.” commented Mayank Ravi, Executive Vice President - Growth and Digital Partnerships, at Bandhan Life.
Insurance is a high-touch industry and Riskcovry has taken a phygital approach to address the needs of various industry players. While it offers white labeled modules for direct-to-customer digital distribution, it also offers assisted-sales platforms - for insurance brokers, banks and corporate agents to leverage their strengths for a digital GTM. Commenting on the unique approach, Mr Shubham Anand of Indusind Bank said, “Riskcovry facilitated a seamless journey for our front line distribution team, utilizing the various tech integrations with Bank’s applications (Finacle/CRM Next/LDAP), government validations (E-Aadhar) and insurer portals - providing an effortless pathway to digitize cumbersome processes and deliver a unique experience to all stakeholders.”
Riskcovry may be onto something unique. Its platform has found favor in each segment of insurance distributors. Banks, wealth management firms, insurance brokers and even NBFCs and fintechs have partnered with Riskcovry for their insurance GTM. A large part of this is due to Riskcovry’s ecosystem-first approach innovations. Riskcovry has two unique offerings - LendPro and EmbedPro - both purpose built for specific use-cases.
LendPro is a platform for NBFCs to digitize credit linked insurance. It offers an integrated solution between the lender’s LOS and insurance partners, enabling a fully digital and paperless process for attachment of credit-linked insurance with loans. Amit Mande, Chief Revenue Officer, Ugro Capital says “At Ugro, we serve a heterogeneous mix of customers. And every customer has different protection needs while taking the loan. With Riskcovry’s LendPro we are not only able to offer customers the right mix of products, but also streamline processes, improve efficiency and TATs. The implementation of Riskcovry’s LendPro has helped improve productivity, and more importantly the customer experience.”
Riskcovry has partnered with a host of leading NBFCs in India and the platform approach to digital transformation is keeping its customers happy. “The integration with Riskcovry was seamless & smooth. Their approach to standardization and diligence in problem solving ensured that we were able to implement their platform at scale. The control & speed at which they managed the project is commendable” said Arindam Das, CEO, Consumer & MSME Loans, DMI Finance.
Founded in 2018, Riskcovry is led by a strong team of ex-insurance industry leaders, and technology and strategy professionals. In its span of six years, the company has recorded strong growth, and significant success in its vision to create a common digital infrastructure for insurance distribution. In 2023, Riskcovry processed a whopping Rs 1,500 cr of insurance premium through its platform, with projections to record a 2x growth in FY25. Even as funding in the startup ecosystem remains elusive, Riskcovry has raised over US$ 8 million in 2024 with participation from domestic and international funds. The company aims to use these funds to strengthen its platform and build new capabilities to address the distribution gaps in the Indian insurance market.
