ACKO General Insurance—backed by private equity firms such as General Atlantic, Multiples and others—is a digital-first player that generates 100% of its revenue by selling directly to customers. Unlike traditional insurers that rely on agents and banks for distribution, ACKO has built its own digital ecosystem.
In an interview with Business Today, the 36-year-old MD & CEO, Animesh Das, shares how the company has disrupted the insurance market and what lies ahead. Edited excerpts:
How is ACKO different from traditional insurance players?
Traditionally, most insurance companies rely heavily on intermediaries—agents, brokers, car dealerships and banks—to distribute their products. Very few, if any, have taken the bold step of going direct-to-consumer.
This approach brings several benefits. First, we can customise products better and position them more clearly. Instead of creating a generic product and pushing it through all channels, we start with customer needs and work backward.
Before ACKO, we were a distribution platform. But we realised unless we controlled the entire value chain—from product design and distribution to claims—we couldn’t offer a truly better experience. Insurance products were unnecessarily complex, claims processes were tedious, and trust was low.
How has adopting a D2C approach resulted in better product design?
By going D2C, we could design simpler, transparent products. For example, take our health insurance. Most agents try to fast-track the sale and waive off medical tests to close the deal faster. This results in riskier underwriting and more complex claims processes later. The customer suffers.
We insisted on 100% medical tests, provided for free. In return, we offer a clean product with no room rent limits, no hidden clauses—just full hospitalisation coverage. We call it our ‘Platinum’ product.
The D2C model allows us to deliver better pricing, higher transparency and smoother claims. With no intermediaries taking a cut, we can reinvest in service.
How is premium compared to traditional players?
Think of it like how banks give loans—not everyone gets the same interest rate. It depends on your profile. Similarly, in insurance, pricing should reflect the risk of everyone.
We use data from repositories—such as claim histories—to price policies more accurately. That’s how we maintain fairness in pricing.
What’s the product mix? Is motor insurance still your biggest segment?
Yes, motor accounts for about 40% of our business. The rest is spread across retail health and embedded health products. Health is growing fast. We had to educate the customer that they can buy comprehensive health plans directly.
Building this required us to rethink everything—from product design to buying journey to claims. The buying process needs to be intuitive. The claims process needs to be simple and transparent.
What’s your claim settlement ratio?
For motor, it’s more than 98%. Health is 95–100%. But I want to clarify that claims settlement ratio is often misunderstood. It’s not always a clean,
Comparable metric because of how claims are reported.
At ACKO, customers can file claims easily via our app, even for minor issues like tyre punctures. We review and let them know if it’s covered. But since everything is logged in our system, our reported claim data is more transparent.
Traditional insurers often have layers—agents or garages—between them and the customer. Many potential claims never get formally reported or logged. That can artificially inflate their claim settlement ratio.
As a customer, you should check online reviews, social media feedback and user ratings. That gives a more accurate picture than just looking at published ratios.
What is your current combined ratio?
Traditionally, the combined ratio is calculated as loss ratio plus commission plus operational costs. If those exceed 100%, it’s a loss-making business. Most of the industry operates at 110–120%. The more efficient players are around 100–105%.
We have no acquisition commission costs due to our direct model. If you exclude commission, our combined ratio would be 80–85%, which is very healthy.
However, we invest significantly in brand building, tech and process improvements. Our combined ratio is around 110+, but it improves by 10–12% every year.
What are the growth drivers for you?
Trust has been a big one. The deepening of customer relationships is important.
Apart from that, product flexibility is improving across the industry. We are also unlocking new product lines and sharply engaging with our existing customers to increase retention and cross-sell.
One area we are doubling down on is our app. Currently, insurance apps don’t have much brand recall, so we are working to build more frequent and meaningful touchpoints to make it more relevant in a customer’s daily life.
@teena_kaushal
