13 years of making everyday lives easier: How OneAssist prioritises customer needs in the Insurtech industry

Consider this: You've just purchased the latest smartphone, which is sleek and powerful. But a constant worry lingers on your mind -What happens if you drop your phone? What if it is water-damaged? These were the concerns that inspired Gagan Maini and Subrat Pani, to set up OneAssist back in 2011.

Protecting gadgets and appliances that matter the most every day

OneAssist identified a market need - a shortage of affordable and dependable protection plans for devices and gadgets we use every day.

"We noticed a growing trend- an increasing reliance on everyday technology, gadgets, and devices," said Yatish Mehrotra, CEO of OneAssist. "While these devices improved our lives, they also caused anxiety. OneAssist was founded with a desire to alleviate Indian consumers' concerns and protect devices that are an integral part of their daily lives."

OneAssist experienced significant growth during its early years of inception, primarily through smartphone protection plans and wallet protection plans, reaching over 200,000 active customers. This period was marked by learning and addressing ecosystem limitations in insurance, logistics, and service delivery.

Building trust and transparency: Key to building a new category

With a customer-first approach, OneAssist focussed on solving customer problems in the early years, to bring in doorstep convenience, high-quality resolution, on-demand assistance, cashless repairs and affordable protection plans that deliver real value, when things break down or malfunction.

OneAssist went about stitching the whole ecosystem to create solutions that deliver on the promise and offer end-to-end resolution to customers with a single-minded focus to help the customer with a guaranteed resolution.

Strategic partnerships: Key to early success

Recognising the need to establish trust in the low-interest, low-awareness Insurtech area, OneAssist collaborated with a wide range of retailers, NBFCs, and fintech organizations. “We realised quickly that collaboration and co-creation with our partners will be our guiding principles if we want to succeed and bring to life our vision of making lives easier,” said Mehrotra.

In the B2B2C ecosystem, partners play an important role in not just promoting the plans and educating customers on the benefits, but also, in many cases, end up being the face of OneAssist for their consumers. These collaborations ensured that OneAssist’s plans were easily accessible at the point of purchase.

"We grow only when our partner grows," he insisted. This collaborative mindset has led to the development of new solutions and ideas, eventually leading to a current customer base of more than 1.3 crore active users.

Five pillars of success

The phenomenal growth of OneAssist can be attributed to its focus on five main pillars.

First, its broad sales and distribution network makes it easily accessible. OneAssist has partnered with more than 3,300 business partners throughout India, ranging from OEMs, large-format retail chains, NBFCs, banks, fintech companies, e-commerce giants, and general trade (GT) stores, to make protection plans available to a wide number of consumers.

Second, the technology-first approach has helped to solve customer and ecosystem problems. Its proprietary tech stack, UNITE, serves as a unifying platform for all stakeholders: customers, sellers, logistics partners, insurance companies, repair centres and service engineers, building real-time visibility of workflows, which improves trust and transparency. And now an AI-first approach has helped OneAssist serve customers at scale with a superlative customer experience. Easy API integrations helped them plug and play with deep integrations with many of their partners.

Third, providing excellent customer service is a priority. OneAssist’s pan-India service network, with over 1,000 service providers and in-house trained service experts, delivers timely repairs with an industry-leading NPS score of 70 plus.

Fourth, OneAssist’s continued focus on product development with innovations backed by research and customer insights that fulfill the changing needs of our partners. All the solutions are 100% backed by insurance—a commitment from OneAssist towards customer centricity and risk management.

Today, it has the largest range of solutions for customers across categories: smartphones, laptops, wearables, earphones, digital/card payment fraud, cyber fraud, small appliances, large appliances, furniture, footwear—everything that we depend on in our daily lives.

Finally, OneAssist believes that at the heart of this success is the team—the employees who have been working relentlessly to build OneAssist for the last 13 years. OneAssist has been certified as a ‘Great Place to Work’ three times in a row, which is a testimony to the work culture that it has built. “There are no employees at OneAssist. Everyone is an owner,” said Mehrotra, talking about the historic move of granting ESOPs to every employee within OneAssist. The move is aimed at stepping up the focus on delivering a best-in-class customer experience with absolute ownership and exceptional value.

Pioneering industry innovations

Being a pioneer in the category and a leader, OneAssist has constantly tried to transform the space with multiple initiatives. It launched the industry's first AI-powered conversational chatbot, which answered over 88% of consumer questions satisfactorily. Similarly, by creating SONIC, an AI-powered claims verification tool, OneAssist was able to process claims in as little as 12 seconds, improving the customer experience. This is also an industry-first solution for building trust and convenience for the category.

It was the first to offer Day Zero benefits on mobile plans, ensuring protection from the moment of purchase, regardless of damage. OneAssist also introduced "sachet protection pockets", allowing customers to purchase targeted coverage tailored to their specific needs. Recognising that protection plans can sometimes pose a financial burden, OneAssist introduced an industry-first no-cost EMI option, making protection more accessible. Finally, OneAssist guarantees repairs within committed timeframes, offering a full refund if those timelines are not met.

Looking into the future

OneAssist has built a strong foundation of trust over the past 13 years. Today, OneAssist is a leading Insurtech player with over 1.3 crore active customers and an industry-best Net Promoter Score (NPS) of ~70. It claims to be India's highest-rated protection expert, with a 4.6-star rating on Google across 36,000 reviews. Similarly, they are rated 4.6 stars on Amazon.

As OneAssist celebrates its 13th anniversary, the company reflects on its guiding principle: evolving alongside the changing lifestyles and demands of its customers. This commitment is demonstrated in its diverse protection plans across multiple product categories, from smartphones to furniture and footwear.

OneAssist prioritises the accessibility of protection plans through a wide range of distribution channels, ensuring "being present where our customers are.”. Its focus on constant innovation is evident in the 100+ protection plans offered in the appliance category alone.

Looking ahead, OneAssist aims to protect everything valued by its customers, empowering them with the flexibility to choose the plan that best suits their needs. As the pioneer and category creator, OneAssist will continue to set new benchmarks on customer experience and Insurtech innovations, safeguarding what matters most to its customers.