Empowerment Through Micro-insurance

With a career spanning over 11 years in India and the UK, Ruchi Deepak has worked with companies like Templeton and Matrix Partners. It was her passion to build something innovative and give back to society, that culminated in ACKO General Insurance. After working in financial services for 11 years, she co-founded ACKO with Varun Dua in 2017 to make insurance relevant and simple for retail customers. In Ruchi’s own words, “With ACKO’s launch we moved one step closer to our objective: To enable and empower the customers to make their own independent decision of purchasing a financial product, buy it on their own and also experience on their own and not be dependent on third parties for these matters. ACKO makes insurance simple, seamless and digital.”

Today, ACKO is one of India’s fastest growing digital insurance company and has issued over 800 million policies to over 62 million unique customers. ACKO is also a pioneer of sachet insurance, bringing contextual micro insurance products to market by partnering with 24+ leading players in the internet ecosystem such as Ola, Oyo, Goibibo-redbus, Urban Clap and Zomato among others.

Currently, ACKO is witnessing 100 percent growth year on year, and the GWP grew from approximately INR 1419 million in financial year 2018-19 to approximately INR 3731 million when the financial year ended on 31st Mar 2020. ACKO holds 8 percent market share of all car insurances bought online in India and over 18 percent market share of digitally transacting users in India.

Talking about the brand’s future, Ruchi tells BW Businessworld “We focus not just on the product but also the service aspect of the business where the real meaning of customer experience lies. We are therefore building infrastructure to offer insurance related services to improve customer experience/claims servicing. Our focus will be the customer, customer service and simplicity of our offerings.”

The microinsurance products of ACKO resonate with this belief system. There are multiple use cases where a microinsurance product can add value to digital customers - for e.g., flight delays / cancellations, ecommerce shipping etc. They aim to design customized products across various platforms to cater to customer needs and ensure peace of mind for them. With microinsurance they can engage with customers on a more frequent basis than what is traditionally done. It is ACKO’s innovative product, transparency, simplicity and convenience that sets it apart from other players in the market. They are the first full stack digital insurer in India. For them, consumer focus will be the driver and they shall use technology to disrupt.

“Our succession plan is already in place, for the company is replete with extremely passionate talent and leaders. ACKO operates independently of its founders. We are very fortunate to have a team which shares the same passion and works independently. We have a strong Board with Independent Directors. It is evident to us that the company is in safe hands, and therefore, we are not worried about succession and continuity at all.”, reveals Ruchi.