After
selling stake in ICICI Lombard General Insurance, Canada-based billionaire Prem
Watsa's Fairfax Holdings is promoting a techdriven startup general insurance
company — Digit. Watsa has partnered Kamesh Goyal, a former Allianz executive
who led the German insurer's business in India.
The
new Bengaluru-headquartered company's team is a blend of insurance and
ecommerce executives.
Those
with an insurance background are largely from Bajaj Allianz. They include Vijay
Kumar, V Philip and Jasleen Kohli who were in the top management of Bajaj
Allianz. From the e-commerce side, the company has Sandeep Komaravelly, who was
part of Snapdeal's startup team, and Sriram Shankar, who was vice-president
(customer experience) at Myntra. The chief technology officer has an e-commerce
background.
The
company, which has already received preliminary approvals from the Insurance
Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), will start with a
paid-up capital of Rs 385 crore. Fairfax Holdings will control 45% of the firm
while the balance will be held by Indian investors led by Goyal, who will be
chairman of the company.
Fairfax
was the co-founder of ICICI Lombard. However, the Canadian group sold last
month a little over 12% stake in the joint venture to Warburg Pincus and other
private equity investors. Subsequently, it announced that it will be further
diluting stake in the proposed initial public offering of the general insurance
firm.
Speaking
to TOI, Komaravelly said that the plan is to launch within the next 6-12 weeks,
subject to final approvals from IRDAI. "We want to bring about a change in
insurance. The differentiation is from the point of view of making the entire
experience for the customer seamless," he said.
Incidentally,
another general insurance company Acko General Insurance, promoted by the
founders of online insurance distributor Coverfox, is also pursuing the
tech-driven insurance model. Acko recently raised $30 million in seed capital.
No comments:
Post a Comment