When you say the word ‘insurance’ there are a couple of things that will come to mind. The first is inevitably protection. After all, insurance is what can get you through tough times. The other word that comes to mind is ‘challenging’. Most people know very little about the different types of insurance products that are available and therefore, find it challenging to buy insurance. In India, these issues have acted as a strong impediment to insurance penetration. As a matter of fact, insurance penetration in India is only around 3.7%. This is where we aimed to orchestrate change.
Turtlemint was established with an aim to improve insurance penetration in India and create a seamless insurance ecosystem where sizable value can accrue to every stakeholder. An assessment of key challenges revealed that lack of education on insurance products and access are two of the major factors acting as a deterrent to insurance penetration. Another factor which came up was the importance of insurance advisors in the ecosystem. When it comes to buying insurance, it is not just a commercial transaction. People like to engage with their advisors, discuss their requirements, and then purchase insurance. The insurance advisor brings with him/her an element of trust and dependability. Recognising this, Turtlemint focused on empowering the insurance advisor with the right set of digital tools and access to educational and upskilling resources.
The company pioneered the PoSP landscape and elevated the entire insurance ecosystem by empowering the most essential player, i.e., the insurance advisor. In an industry-first initiative, it focused on leveraging digital technology that can educate advisors, help them upskill, make client advisory and on-boarding process seamless, and help them give their clients the best advice. This offline-online model had widespread ramifications. Firstly, it helped improve insurance penetration by making insurance more accessible and easier to understand. And, secondly, it also stoked the entrepreneurial attitude of people and created new advisors in geographies where no competitor had presence.
To put that in numbers, Turtlemint has created more than 1,20,000 micro entrepreneurs with penetration in 14,000+ pin codes out of 19,000 pin codes in India and more than 1.5 million customers. It has also on boarded 50+ insurers. Additionally, over 10 Lakh+ people have installed the mobile application of Turtlemint while the company has served over 1.5 Lakh active insurance advisors and sold over 35 lakh policies. The company has 50+ branches across the country that serve advisors and in fact, there are barely any pincodes in the country where you will not find a Turtlemint Advisor.
While Turtlemint is well on its march towards achieving its goals, it is important to highlight that such success stems from an unflinching belief and focus on one’s goals and destination. Turtlemint has remained steadfast on its journey towards improving insurance penetration in India through technology tools that can empower advisors and make it easy for consumers to purchase an insurance policy.
