DELHI-BASED AGRI INSURANCE STARTUP GRAMCOVER IS DE-RISKING RURAL INDIA WITH AFFORDABLE PRODUCTS
Read more at: https://yourstory.com/2021/03/agriculture-insurance-startup-gramcover-affordable-products
By
Aparajita Saxena|16th Mar 2021
Insurance aggregator GramCover provides affordable, customised, and well-rounded insurance products designed for agriculture and rural India. Founded in 2016, the agri insurance startup aims to become the centre of all risk and insurance in villages, ‘gai se gaadi tak’.
Between 2017 and 2019, India lost crops grown on nearly 8.5 percent (or 18.16 million hectares) of its total arable land due to floods and excessive rains, according to data shared by the government in the Lok Sabha in February. This resulted in monetary losses to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees for farmers. Crop loss, and, by extension, financial loss, is the leading cause of farmer suicides in India. And, with the world hurtling towards climate change, crop losses are only going to keep getting worse. In fact, environmental scientists have predicted that climate change can lead to a 1.5 percent decline in India’s GDP in the next nearly 10 years — and the farmer community will be the worst hit of all. Facts like these troubled Jatin Singh, a resident of Delhi who comes from a long line of problem-solvers, aka entrepreneurs. Entering the business world at 25, Jatin founded his first company, Skymet, an agricultural weather risk manager and data company, which became the stepping stone to his next venture when he realised, upon analysing heaps of data, how weather and climate affected Indian agriculture. When he learnt how little one could control forces of nature such as floods, excessive or very little rainfall, and rising temperatures, Jatin decided to focus his attention on the people that crop losses affected the most — farmers.
With the goal of increasing the
penetration of formal financial products and services, and helping farmers
cushion themselves against sudden financial losses, he founded GramCover, an
agricultural insurance startup. In partnership with insurers such as Bajaj
Allianz, Royal Sundaram, LIC, ICICI Lombard, GIC Re, HDFC ERGO, Aviva and a
host of others, GramCover provides insurance products for crops, livestock,
health, motor, and life, among others, for as little as Rs 35.
These insurance products cover financial loss-causing events such as death of
livestock; crop damage due to landslides, weather, droughts, fires, and floods;
loss or theft of two-wheelers; and general life and health. “Our mission
statement is gai (cow) se gaadi (car) tak, and we want to become the centre of
all risk and insurance in rural India,” Jatin, the startup’s Co-founder tells
YourStory. The startup, which works in 28 districts and 3,000-plus villages,
was founded in 2016 by Jatin and Dhyanesh Bhatt, a dairy technologist and
management-degree holder in agribusiness. Till date, over 1.7 million Indian
farmers have purchased insurance on GramCover. The startup is currently present
in West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana,
Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Uttarakhand.
Assessing risks GramCover works like any other insurance company — its agents
educate residents in rural areas about the products it sells, and then signs up
those interested in purchasing insurance. What helps GramCover’s acceptability
in rural areas is the startup’s understanding of the biological processes of
production, how geography affects production, and the way it underwrites those
insurances after making its assessments. “Difficulties in crop underwriting
mainly arise because of the nature of the risk, asymmetries of information in
underwriting, the geographical dispersion of agricultural production. and the
complexity of the biological processes of production,” the startup’s website
states. To solve the problem of assessing agricultural lands for the purpose of
underwriting an insurance policy, the Delhi-based startup uses technologies
such as remote sensing, UAV, and others to evaluate risks and arrive at an
acceptable policy price.
While many insurers would have taken a largely one-size-fits-all approach, GramCover customises its insurance policies, making them more affordable for farmers and ensuring partners don’t get inundated with excessive risk. “Although farmers’ incomes are relatively small, we can create value in their insurance purchases by insulating them from a risk for which they otherwise would have had to self-insure, and consequently suffer from significant financial impact in the case of any adverse or calamitous event,” Jatin says. “At GramCover, we leverage technology and bring access to insurance for rural customers, through relevant products that they can purchase easily at affordable prices,” he adds.
For full article-
Read more at: https://yourstory.com/2021/03/agriculture-insurance-startup-gramcover-affordable-products
Read more at: https://yourstory.com/2021/03/agriculture-insurance-startup-gramcover-affordable-products
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