Acko receives IRDA approval; to start India operations by 2017 end

Acko, an online general insurance company has announced receiving the final clearance from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) to commence general insurance business in India.

The company had filed the application for the licence with IRDA to set up a general insurance company in November 2016, and is currently directing its endeavors to strengthen the team, set-up robust tech processes, and forge alliances to formulate and customize products as per the need of the customers.

It aims to unbundle insurance in India to make it both more affordable and relevant to consumers of today.

Founded by Varun Dua, who is the erstwhile founder of Coverfox, Acko recently raised USD 30 million. The investment is backed by Narayan Murthy's Catamaran Ventures, Venk Krishnan and Subba Rao of NuVentures, Kris Gopalakrishnan - Co-founder Infosys, Hemendra Kothari of DSP Blackrock, Atul Nishar - Founder and Chairman of Hexaware Technologies, Rajeev Gupta, veteran investment banker and Founder of Arpwood Capital, Accel and SAIF Partners. The venture is already garnering active interest from the insurtech sector.

"We are happy to have received the final license from IRDA within a year of filing the application, we are now ready to operate in the general insurance space, we will initially start with four branches. We are looking to start operations by December 2017, by selling multiple products through online channel. Our team has mapped a huge opportunity to tap into online general insurance segment which is estimated to be over $10 billion annually, this has helped us to take a plunge as an insuretech that is completely digital in the general insurance space without the traditional set-up of the brick and mortar format," said Varun Dua.

Acko will operate as an independent general insurance company with its entire operations offered through the digital platform. It will create products and deliver opportunities in areas where there are gaps such as personalized insurance products based on user consumption behaviours, be it in terms of premium amounts or recommendations for a mix of products that are best suited for their requirement, and will handhold them during the difficult claims process.