Coverfox.com to hire people, introduce more products

Online insurance booking portal Coverfox.com has plans to increase its employee strength from the present 300 plus to 500 by the end of 2018.

Co-Founder and CTO Coverfox.com Devendra Rane said the idea is to hire smart, and not hire more.  Founded in 2013, when ecommerce started gaining traction, Coverfox.com has developed a very strong product and engineering team that focuses on creating technology products that make it easy to buy insurance.

“Coverfox.com is a technology company, selling insurance and not an insurance aggregator using technology. Our team of data scientists analyses the consumer interaction with various projects to furnish better trends. The product keeps evolving as we collect data on customer behaviour and product usage,” Rane said.

According to a report by global management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the online insurance market in India is already in excess of Rs 700 crore and it’s growing fast. The report adds that online life insurance sales are expected to grow to 3% to 5% of the individual annualised new business premium by 2020.

When asked about its competitors, Rane said the company is unique when it comes to products and engineering abilities. “Unlike most of the popular players in the space, we are not a web aggregator but an IRDAI licensed broker that works on a standard commission from all insurance companies. This allows us to be neutral and unbiased. Using our proprietary technology and algorithm based platform, users can compare and choose from a range of insurance plans across insurance companies, understand key features and buy policies instantly and safely,” he said.

Till date, the company has received three rounds of funding; and Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures has also invested an undisclosed amount in the company.

Coverfox.com currently offers over 100 products or insurance plans across motor, health, life and travel to customers through its portal. “At the moment, we are doing over 30,000 policies a month across segments. The number of policies sold is a good indicator of our growing customer base, which we are growing more than 15% month-on-month,” he said.

“We have around 35 insurers on board with us, and we are always on a look-out to widen our product offering that are easy to understand, transparent and has a wider network of reach. We will add more products into our portfolio in future. Car insurance is our main focus area and we are taking a pole position, the average premium is upwards of Rs 10,000,” he added.