The platform provides advisors with digital tools enabling them to sell multiple insurance products of different companies through one single app:
Founded in 2015, India-born insurance platform Turtlemint has a unique online-offline model. Dhirendra Mahyavanshi, Co-Founder, explains: “Our hybrid model empowers insurance advisors across the country with digital tools to navigate an otherwise cumbersome offline selling process at scale quickly. We have grown significantly since inception via our user-friendly and innovative digital platform.”
Mobile App, Seamless Sell
One of the main reasons why Turtlemint has been able to achieve good growth is because it has not lost sight of its overarching goal to improve insurance penetration in the country by leveraging the right technology tools. It currently has a base of approximately 3.5 million clients, which it acquired online in a short span. It sells around 10,000 policies daily. Health insurance is its fastest-growing segment which has grown by 2x in the last year and by 35% y/y in the first half of the current FY.
Turtlemint has been empowering the most important cog in the insurance ecosystem, i.e., the insurance advisor by leveraging the technology. Dhirendra explains: “Our mobile app Mintpro enables advisors to seamlessly sell the right insurance policies to their clients and also to expand their business. The pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital adoption and I am happy to say that we are already ahead of the curve when it comes to creating seamless digital solutions.”
100% of Turtlemint’s business is digitally driven. The app has various facets – firstly, it provides insurance advisors with digital tools that can enable them to sell multiple insurance products of multiple insurance companies through one single mobile application. Secondly, the app helps insurance advisors to expand their business through better service to existing clients and by expanding the client base. Dhirendra adds: “We have created a ground-breaking multilingual digital solution in the form of the Mintpro app that empowers advisors and enables them to grow their business by selling the right insurance policies, to the right people, and in a seamless manner.”
Upskilling Advisors online
Turtlemint has a vast pool of point-of-sale persons (PoSPs), its insurance advisors. Dhirendra explains: “These PoSPs are trained digitally and equipped to issue an insurance policy instantly online to our prospective buyer. We have been able to create India’s largest PoSP network of more than 125,000 advisors. This indicates a 161% increase in PoSPs over the last year. A majority of our PoSPs – approximately 76.5% – fall in the 22-40 years age group, who are highly tech savvy. From a geographical presence perspective, approximately 9.33% are from tier 1, around 26.4% are from tier 2, and a significant 64.27% are from tier 3 cities.”
The app allows the insurance advisors to upskill by providing access to a comprehensive online skill development program. Dhirendra further says: “The program offers 70+ courses ranging from insurance advisor certification to personality development courses, sales skills, podcasts, etc. We have a dedicated section for advisors that provides several tools that can help them achieve their main goal. The tools can help them get new leads, access posters, videos, curated daily news, product videos, brochures, etc.”
In-House Tech Team, Tools
Turtlemint proactively leverages existing and emerging technologies to create efficient and customized solutions for clients. Dhirendra explains: “We have a tech team of 150+ developers and all the development and product innovation are done in-house. We use tools like Jira, Slack, Monday & Google Business Solutions for seamless communication between teams. We use Amazon Web Services for hosting, server space, etc.”
People and technology form the very core of Turtlemint’s business strategy. Dhirendra adds: “An unwavering focus on harnessing the value of these two factors has held us in good stead and enabled it to grow at a strong clip. More specifically, we have been able to double our revenue run rate.”
RPA, Deep Learning, OCR
Examples of how Turtlemint leverages technology are interesting. Dhirendra describes: “We use intelligent automation with technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for repetitive, manual and cumbersome tasks like policy database reconciliation, claims and issuance. We deploy Deep Learning models that leverage and analyze the data collected through user interactions, while ensuring that the privacy of users is maintained. These models help us to predict user churn, identify upsell/cross-sell opportunities, enhance the conversion of the leads, etc.”
Chatbots are used for handling user queries to reduce turnaround time and improve consumer happiness. At Turtlemint, these are used to quickly respond to standard user queries. Dhirendra further states: “We deploy Deep Learning and Optimal Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities for extracting relevant information from digital documents. These are used for generating quotes from the previous year’s policy copy or RC book. The same technology is also used to reduce all the manual efforts to ensure the completeness of the data in MIS.”
Generating Leads, GROW
Turtlemint has also introduced multi-channel and multi-platform short story formats for content consumption. Dhirendra says: “A similar approach is also being followed for consumer education and awareness. In addition to creating visibility, this also helps in generating leads for advisors.” The Mintpro app has a GROW section which has a wide range of content. Dhirendra further says: “This content is easily shareable amongst all members of the Mintpro ecosystem.”
Social Media Presence
Turtlemint has a strong presence on social media. It has always believed that a subject like insurance and special technology in insurance needs to be accurately communicated and made relatable to the target audience so that its true benefits can be reaped by all ecosystem stakeholders. Thus, Dhirendra points out: “We are fairly active on multiple social media channels and consistently post information related to insurance concepts, educational videos, industry updates, and current affairs. A similar approach is also being followed for consumer education and awareness. In addition to creating visibility, this also helps in generating leads for advisors. For video content, we have Youtube channel www.youtube.com/c/InsuranceGyan. For the other educational and industry updates, we have active LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook channels.”
Acquiring Startup To Realize Data Engineering Plans
In the post covid- scenario, Turtlemint has set its targets and plans for IT, digital initiatives, for business growth in the foreseeable future. Dhirendra reveals: “Turtlemint strongly believes that the technology will continue to be the main driving force in the insurance ecosystem, orchestrating change and enabling inclusive growth. As we forge ahead, we plan to focus on automating processes and optimally leveraging data science, data engineering, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and deep learning and OCR capabilities.”
Turtlemint recently acquired Pune based startup IOPhysics Systems. IOPhysics has a highly talented tech team. The startup aims to help data scientists and data engineers derive intelligence from structured or unstructured data in real-time. As part of their highway to a 100 Unicorns program, Microsoft recognised IOPhysics as the ‘Most Innovative & High Potential Startup’ across tier-2 cities in India. As a part of the deal, Turtlemint will also be taking over the IOPhysics IP and product portfolio. Passion Connect, the HR advisory unit incubated by Blume Ventures, one of Turtlemint’s investors, played a crucial role in this acquisition.
Turtlemint co-founder Anand Prabhudesai explains the whole process: “As our company goes into the next phase of growth, data science and data engineering have become critical focus areas. Passion Connect recognized this need, leveraged its strong network in the startup community and connected us to various startup teams across domains. We loved the IOPhysics team, their IP and product since it allows developers to be cloud-agnostic and pick data platforms that suit the best need for the use case.”
IOPhysics’ founder and CEO Ashish Gawali will join the Turtlemint team as their VP, Data Science and Data Engineering, while the rest of the IOPhysics team will join the tech and data science verticals at Turtlemint. Its USP is its flexibility to integrate any data with any public cloud data platform of choice and data visualization tool – all with an easy-to-use interface. Ashish Gawali, founder, IOPhysics, says: “When we were introduced to Turtlemint, we realized that both teams shared the same passion for improving people’s lives, even in remote pockets of the country. In addition, we have immense respect for the intelligence and experience of their leadership team.”
