Zuno General Insurance, a full stack Insurtech, plans to expand its ‘usage-based insurance products’ portfolio this year as the millennial audience are increasingly take to App-based personalised solutions for their car insurance needs, its Managing Director & CEO Shanai Ghosh has said. 

There is lot of appeal for ‘usage-based insurance’ products among millennials these days as it empowers and rewards them for safe driving. 

On the anvil is a “Pay How You Drive” offering from Zuno that will come as an add on to every motor insurance product and accumulate savings for customers based on how they are driving. 

“Based on their driving score, they will get rewards. Pay How You Drive will go live in the next 2-3 weeks. We will be introducing many usage-based insurance products this year. Now, we are doing it for motor insurance, we will be introducing health also later on”, Ghosh told businessline here.

While the usage-based insurance is more than a decade old, it is a fairly recent development in India.

Motor insurance in India can now be personalised based on every individual’s driving requirement and pattern. “So, you get coverage that is suitable to you and pricing that is personalised to you. You can now pay for what, how and only how much you use”, she noted.

A recent survey by Zuno General Insurance revealed that the concept of usage-based insurance still has low awareness in the country. About 70 per cent of respondents —target group of  25-40 years—showed keenness to opt for usage-based insurance over conventional options.

Driving score

While most respondents feel Indians are safe drivers, they believe a driving score will help them improve further. Ninety per cent of respondents want to get a driving score to improve driving quality. 

‘Reward for safe driving’ and ‘Driving score’ are the key consideration drivers to opt for usage-based insurance, the survey findings revealed. 95% of respondents believe rewarding safe driving will positively influence driving behaviour.

Zuno General Insurance was till recently Edelweiss General Insurance. “Zuno was born (about a week back) from conviction that any kind of insurance should be easy, friendly and transparent. The name reflects our passion and zeal to make insurance easy, simple, and convenient for our customers and partners”, Ghosh said.

Until now, under a regular motor policy, there was no difference in the premium paid by a customer who hardly used the vehicle when compared to a high-usage vehicle owner. This has however changed with the launch of ‘Usage-Based Insurance’. 

Ghosh said that Zuno has been the pioneer in this Usage-Based Insurance space by launching SWITCH, the country’s first mobile telematics based, on-demand motor insurance product. “Our policy is an app that not only lets you switch Insurance off on the days car is not being used but also gives you further savings based on your driving score”, she noted.

Findings from the Zuno study show that there is high intent to purchase a ‘Usage-Based Insurance ‘ policy amongst people who are aware about it. “Customers want personalised solutions for everything else today. We found that their expectation of Insurance is no different. It is heartening to know that customers who are aware of usage-based insurance, have found value in not just the savings they will get but also believe that such products will influence safer driving in the country”, Ghosh said.

In recent years, there has been a huge change in the usage of vehicles for personal mobility. People are becoming increasingly conscious about environmental concerns and trying to use carpooling/shared vehicle where possible. Moreover, with increasing affluence, many households own more than one car, of which one may be used sparingly. “If you add distance driven, driving pattern, and driving behavior to the mix, you are looking at a huge spectrum of when, how, and how much personal cars are used, and one approach to all, for insurance, seems counter intuitive”, the survey revealed. 

Ghosh also said that the company will this year look to roll out more health insurance products, including simple health insurance offering. “This simple health insurance product that we are thinking should be largely a digital product. It will be simple product, not a vanilla one. Sometimes too much choice is confusing in a category that people don’t understand”, she added.

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