ICICI Lombard sets up in-house Digital Arm to Tap Growing Internet Market

ICICI Lombard General Insurance (ICICI-GI) has set up a 'virtual company' called ICICI Lombard Digital within the company to spearhead insurance services through a purely digital platform. ICICI Lombard Digital will be a specialised digital arm that cuts across the entire value-chain and leverages partnerships throughout the modern-day internet-ecosystem.

"We felt this necessitates a differentiated approach, which will help us to leverage emerging opportunities. Conventionally, our digital team was primarily a sales channel and it used to work with central departments. In the new setup, ICICI Lombard Digital will have a separate underwriter, actuary, technology, legal and compliance teams, in addition to the business team," said Sanjeev Mantri, executive director at ICICI-GI.

Inspired by the start-up culture and the wider integration of large established financial services companies with fintechs, Mantri told Business Standard that the aim of the digital arm would be to work with e-commerce companies and app-based start-up service providers, which could help "create many unconventional products to cater to this segment".

For instance, in the past few months, ICICI-GI partnered with Ola Cabs to provide a travel insurance policy for the customer's journey. For Re 1, the customer can insure their 'trip' in case of the risk of an accident or if heavy traffic causes the customer to miss a flight.

Other partnerships that ICICI-GI is working on include RedBus, Mobikwik, Happy Loans and Uber.

"To operate in the new e-commerce environment, to sell products on the fly and in sachet like formats, companies like us need to create the ability to sell products at any time, from anywhere, at the right price," he said.