Online insurance broker Coverfox is keen to emerge as the No.1 online player for auto insurance by June next year, its Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Varun Dua has said. 

Currently,  auto insurance is the largest selling category for this company,  which operates the online insurance portal coverfox.com. Founded in 2013, Coverfox sells insurance online and offers car insurance,  health insurance,  home insurance and travel insurance. 

Dua said that the recent e-commerce surge was driving more people to buy insurance online.  From an average run rate of 10,000 policies per month now, Coverfox expects ramp up in sales to say about 50,000 every month by December 2016.

"Clearly, more people are buying their insurance online, especially with proliferation of smartphones", Dua said. 

In fact, in nearly 35 per cent of the transactions handled by Coverfox,  the payments are coming out of a mobile phone/smartphone, he noted. 

By 2016, India is expected to overtake the US to become the second largest market for smartphones globally, after China.  As on date, online purchases represent a small component of insurance activity in India.  Less than 2 percent of overall insurance sales comes through online medium. 

However, the influence of digital is already 'big' and getting 'bigger', exponentially in terms of user growth and time taken.

In March last year, a new report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Google India estimated that three in every four insurance policies sold by 2020 would be influenced by digital channels during either the pre-purchase stage, purchase or renewal stages.

Insurance sales from online channels are expected to grow 20x by 2020, the study said, adding that overall impact of internet influenced sales would be Rs 300-400k crore.

Srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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