Fairfax to back general insurance startup Digit

Mumbai: After selling stake in ICICI Lombard General Insurance, Canada-based billionaire

Prem Watsa

’s

Fairfax

Holdings is promoting a tech-driven startup general insurance company —

Digit

. Watsa has partnered Kamesh Goyal, a former Allianz executive who led the German insurer’s business in India.

The new Bengaluru-headquartered company’s team is a blend of insurance and e-commerce executives. Those with an insurance background are largely from

Bajaj Allianz

. They include Vijay Kumar, V Philip and Jasleen Kaur who were in the top management of Bajaj Allianz. From the e-commerce side, the company has Sandeep Komaravelly, who was part of Snapdeal’s startup team, and Sriram Shankar, who was vice-president (customer experience) at Myntra. The chief technology officer is from a telecom firm.

The company, which has already received preliminary approvals from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (

IRDAI

), will start with a paid-up capital of Rs 385 crore. Fairfax Holdings will control 45% of the firm while the balance will be held by Indian investors led by Goyal, who will be chairman of the bank.

Fairfax was the co-founder of ICICI Lombard. However, the Canadian group sold last month a little over 12% stake in the joint venture to Warburg Pincus and other private equity investors. Subsequently, it announced that it will be further diluting stake in the proposed initial public offering of the general insurance firm.

Speaking to TOI, Komaravelly said that the plan is to launch within the next 6-12 weeks, subject to final approvals from IRDAI. “We want to bring about a change in insurance. The differentiation is from the point of view of making the entire experience for the customer seamless,” he said. “We are based out of Bengaluru because it has the right culture for startups and also we will be using technology extensively.”

Incidentally, another tech-driven startup insurance company Acko General Insurance, which recently raised $30 million in seed capital, will also be headquartered in Bengaluru. Acko is promoted by the founders of online insurance distributor Coverfox.

“We want to look beyond motor and health insurance. Given that the product standpoint of general insurance is to keep lifestyle intact, covers for personal assets are among those categories that we want to launch,” said Komaravelly.

Digit originally started out as Oben (German for above). However, given the focus on simplicity, the founders agreed to change the name to Digit. “We have applied for the trademark and for a change in name with the Registrar of Companies and it should get reflected in the next few days,” said Komaravelly.

“For us, making it simple translates into three things — make the interaction positive across touch points, make products very simple, modular and relatable to customers, and third to make claims process very simple,” he added.