Krishan Dwivedi, GetMeInsure.com, Pioneers in online insurance space in India

Krishan, please tell us what GetMeInsure.com is all about.

GetMeInsure.com basically helps people to get the right information on insurance products. We also give consumers the power to compare, negotiate and ultimately help them to get the right insurance cover.

How is GetMeInsure.com different from other players in the industry? What are your flagship solutions?

We are different because we do not promote or push any particular insurance product or company nor do we sell insurance like many of our competitors, so technically we are neutral. We get customer’s connected to insurance professionals directly in their city and help them get “Real Quotes” they can trust and buy. We regularly update content on our site to help the consumer to make the right decision. We speak to each of our customers to find out their requirements after they have applied on our website and forward their request only after their permission is granted.

How did the idea for GetMeInsure.com come about? How much capital was required to implement the idea?

In 2007, I was looking for some information on insurance and could not find a single Indian website dedicated to insurance. I started searching the web to see how things work in US and Europe and I could find 100’s of websites on insurance. I studied their business models, revenue generation, distribution and marketing activities. It took almost 2 months to put together all the information and then apply it to the Indian context and hence GetMeInsure.com was born. Arunabh Dey saw potential in this idea and he was willing to invest. We put in our personal savings and started of with a capital of Rs. 500,000.

Krishnan, Tell us about your background.

I have done my schooling from Delhi Public School after which I did my graduation in B.com from Mumbai University and MBA in marketing from Welingkar’s Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai. I started my career with Centrum Capital. After a year with Centrum, I moved on to join Pioneer Investcorp(PINC Money). I was heading the Wealth & Portfolio Management Division of the company at Pune, just before starting GetMeInsure.com.Where do you see GetMeInsure.com five years from now?

We want to be among the top three players in this space and we are constantly looking to improve the user experience and offer more tools and analysis for consumers. I feel a large part of transaction related to insurance will happen online from sales to servicing the client. As of now, most of the insurance companies are still developing their online platforms.

What is GetMeInsure.com’s revenue model? Have you been funded?

Major revenue for GetMeInsure.com comes from selling insurance leads to insurance companies and insurance agents spread across the country. We have been a profitable company from 2^nd year of operations and so far we have not received any funding.

How big is the team behind GetMeInsure.com? Are you looking at hiring?

We are a team of 5 people at GetMeInsure.com. The technology is being handled by a vendor and we are looking at hiring people for content management, SEO and online marketing activity.

What are the challenges that you faced while developing your products? How did you overcome those challenges?

Like every start-up, we had our hands full of challenges, from selecting the technology platform for the website to developing the right content. Also selecting the right design and marketing strategy was a challenge. The biggest challenge however was getting contracts from insurance companies and making agents pay in advance for insurance leads.

How has the journey been so far? Let us know about your expansion plans.

As of now we get close to 30,000 unique visitors on our insurance portal each month and we have more than 7 insurance companies and close to 1000 registered agents. The insurance industry is still in the nascent stages here in India. In US, for example the conversion for Companies/ Agents is close to 70% to 75% from an insurance lead and the same is only 10% to 15% in India. The awareness of life insurance product is far more compared to health insurance or medical cover, but we feel that the health insurance product will gain importance in the coming years due to increasing treatment cost.

Yes, we are working on expanding our product portfolio to other financial products. We are also working on a unique concept for generating and selling leads, which would be helpful for media agencies and independent financial advisors.

We at YourStory.in wish Krishan and GetMeInsurance.com much success. To know more about this venture and their web portal, check out http://www.getmeinsure.com/. Also, let us know your views on this story by writing to us at [email protected]