RenewBuy, a digital insurance broker, wants to ramp up its multi-company digital agency force to two lakh over the next three years, said its Chief Executive Officer Balachander Sekhar.

This insurance-tech company now has 27,000 agents in 450 cities. Sekhar told BusinessLine here that the company intends to cover 1,000 cities with digital agency force of about one lakh in two to three years.

RenewBuy has an unique business model that is based on multi-company agency force using ‘point of sale’ terminals and is challenging the entire single company-tied agency model.

With this digital-only model, RenewBuy is able to onboard an agent at one-tenth of the cost that an insurance company would incur.

A RenewBuy agent, unlike a single insurance agent, is able to give 10 insurance quotes to a potential customer.

This digital service provider is now nudging insurance companies to shut their physical branches and move to the RenewBuy platform for delivering the same business.

“We believe that the entire agency business needs to move out of a single company-tied agency into platforms like us,” he said.

“Of the 30 lakh agents out there, as much as 20 lakh will over time move to platforms like RenewBuy.” With the help of investments in digital technology and mobile apps, RenewBuy is now eyeing deep penetration into Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns in India.

“We will be the only models to service Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Because of the dramatic cost-efficiency of our model, we are challenging the need of a physical insurance branch. Earlier, insurance companies were resisting us, and today they can’t help but join us,” he said.

RenewBuy, which recently raised $19 million in series-B funding, is now offering motor, health and life insurance products through its agency-led assisted selling.

Single-window product

Plans are afoot to provide a “combo” product to consumers in the next three months. For a single payout of insurance premium, a consumer could get the benefits of motor, health and life cover from three different companies of his choice. “Customers will see it as a single-window product”.

To expand its agency network, RenewBuy is now promoting the concept of alternative employment for college students.

“Our digital-only model will help provide a smart way to college kids to become financial advisors. We want to work with colleges and build a curriculum as this would be a means of providing employment.”, said Sekhar.

RenewBuy is teaching its insurance agents to use Facebook, WhatsApp and engage with their customers.

“If we can get up to two lakh agents by 2022, each will have the ability to reach 500 households and, therefore, help create a large platform that will reach out to 10 crore households”, he said.

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