'Covid fear has helped insurance sector grow'

Bengaluru: Founded in December 2017, Digit Insurance has a straightforward aim of making insurance simple. While Covid-19 has pushed several sectors to peril insurance was no exception. However, Digit Insurance even in the lockdown months has grown by 35% against the industry's growth of 2% to 3%. Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Direct (online) Sales at Digit Insurance, Vivek Chaturvedi talks to The Hans India on the insurance sector and how Digit Insurance will fare in the stiff competition.

Digit Insurance has a straightforward aim of making insurance simple. Do people still find it difficult to understand the basics of insurance?

Simplicity is a long journey. To drive it in an industry which has always been seen as complicated is a long overdue process too. So, yes, people will take time to grasp and the understanding will become simple over time. But right now, we have seen that people find our processes and our documents, especially our 2-pager summary document that has been torture-tested by kids, simple and easy to comprehend and follow. And this is evidenced by the number of positive reviews we have received on our Facebook platform, which is over 10,000, where happy customers have explained how this mission of simplicity has made their insurance experience seamless. We believe this is a good start and gradually we will bring a change.

Has Covid 19 pandemic made people realise the importance of insurance? How has been the growth of Digit Insurance in the period?

Covid-19 has instilled a sense of fear and insecurity amongst people. In such a case the one thing that they look for is financial protection. Hence comes the importance of insurance. It has been seen that the overall penetration for health insurance especially has increased during the pandemic. For us, being a digital first company and being 100% on cloud we have been able to cater to the demand and even in the lockdown months we have grown by 35% against the industry's growth of 2 to 3%.

Online insurance market is thriving. Has there been a rise in online sale of insurance during the pandemic?

Driving simplicity means to be present wherever the customer is buying the things that they love, and wherever they will be comfortable to buy insurance. Hence our focus is to be present across all channels. Our partners are very important to drive insurance penetration in India. Similarly, ecommerce customers are looking at buying products from different online players. Hence, we look at offering our products through our direct platform too. So, we see all the channels have high potential to grow now with the businesses opening up.

Insurance sector is growing. But with too many companies wouldn't the market be hampered and how could people choose the better option?

It is always a healthy competition to have more players emerging in the market and it helps customers have more options to choose from. People should look at plans that are relevant and also how simple the claims process is while also looking at the service benefits the insurer offers.