Hyderabad: Alliance Insurance Brokers recently forayed into expert domain services, rolled out retail insurance catering to corporate employees and a phygital retail product to meet the insurance needs of small businesses.
The company provides customised insurance solutions, claims management, insurance audit and renewal reviews, catering to both life and non-life insurance. Aatur Thakkar, co-founder of Alliance Insurance Brokers, shares with Y V Phani Raj the niche opportunities the company sees in the insurance space. Excerpts-
Wider offerings
We have been catering to a wide range of sectors including aviation, manufacturing, power, oil & gas, infrastructure, sports, media, banking, financial institutions, sea food and agriculture, and started offering employee insurance as there was a major gap. We have been serving 3,500 corporates in the last 18 months through our ‘Elephant Insurance’ platform benefiting 10 lakh employees. The country is full of small and medium enterprises and the company has developed and provided a phygital interface ‘SME Insure’ to address all their challenges through end-to-end services. The B2B sector today contributes about Rs 1,100 crore in terms of premium under management.
Lockdown impact
We grew 33 per cent in the last fiscal year-on-year in terms of financial performance despite the pandemic. We could adjust to the new normal by using new technology and advanced communication platforms. Sectors such as gems & jewellery, infrastructure, construction, sports, media, exports, restaurants, leisure, travel and aviation have degrown as they have reduced insurance buying. Motor insurance got impacted due to fall in car insurance. Covid-related insurance, pharma and specialty chemicals have seen significant growth. Tier-2 and tier-3 penetration increased in the last 12-15 months.
Aviation & Aerospace
There are opportunities in four broad areas- commercial airlines (passenger segment), general aviation (private charters and choppers), drones (monitoring geography, farming, supply chain) and aerospace (satellites). Insurance covering pilots, aircraft, loss of revenue, accidents and balance sheet protection are offered by the company. We are also in active discussion with drone manufacturers to ensure that we provide solutions at the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) level. We are also in the international travel insurance space, though this segment took a hit since the pandemic outbreak.
Sports & events
Alliance has been one of the partners of IPL for more than 10 years. Need for insurance has been evolving and enhancing, starting from player injuries to weather derivative exposure and covid bubble insurance. Requirements run into several thousands of crores. There are many stakeholders who are involved in an IPL kind of event and one trigger can impact all the stakeholders.
Aquaculture sector
We recently forayed into this segment, insuring farming of shrimps. We are focusing on Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Our teams will be operating in Gujarat and West Bengal as well to meet the needs of this segment, thus serving the coastal belt.
Cyber security
Be it stock exchanges, commodity exchanges, large IT or media houses, cyber security is a key segment. The company sees opportunities to partner with corporates in pharmaceuticals, communication, aviation and media where data plays a key role, to ensure protection at the employee level. We believe data is the new oil. Cyber crime and professional negligence can destroy a startup. And startups should be insured for such risks. We are keen to help them.
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