Our primary focus is to remain on protection biz, says ACKO Life's CEO Sandip Goenka

Sandip Goenka, CEO, ACKO Life

ACKO Life Insurance is doubling down on its protection focus, prioritising term insurance while also planning to expand into pensions and annuities, said the company's CEO Sandip Goenka, during an interaction with Moneycontrol.

Goenka revealed that 95 percent of its policyholders are under 44 years of age, with half of them being first-time buyers. and the other half already holding life insurance.

He also said the company would be open to foreign direct investment (FDI) opportunities, especially if interest comes from international players, and said he welcomes recent regulatory reform made during Budget 2025.

Edited excerpts:

You were appointed CEO of ACKO Life in October. How has the experience been so far, and what is your vision for the company?

I joined ACKO as CFO in January 2023, where my focus was initially on licensing. After securing the license, I continued in my role as CFO, but given the startup environment, I wore multiple hats. We were fully focused on creating a transparent and simple product that customers can easily understand and purchase on their own. However, we also provide support for those who need it. When customers show interest, we need to address several elements, including customer experience, product presentation on the app, and more. On a larger scale, we also have to consider the systems needed to support these processes. Once a policy is issued, it is crucial to manage customer communications to ensure continuous support. Moving forward, the goal is to build a product that truly meets customer needs, which requires me to unlearn a lot of things and approach things with a fresh perspective.

Since you mentioned unlearning, do you think there’s also a need for some level of unlearning on the consumer side? The insurance industry has traditionally been driven by agents, and now your company is removing that aspect. How do you expect this shift to impact the insurance industry, and do you believe consumers will need to unlearn certain things as well?

In my view, customers have a thousand things to think about in their lives, and insurance happens to be one of them. So, it would be wrong for me to say that customers have to learn or unlearn. I believe it is more about us ensuring that awareness is created regarding what should be bought and how it fits their needs. As long as customers are aware of their own needs and know what works best for them, I believe there is less of a need for an intermediary to help with the application process. Our responsibility is to ensure awareness and make our products as simple as possible to address that. We are also keeping the required documents straightforward and avoiding unnecessary complexity. Transparency and simplicity are key for us.

Since ACKO is purely D2C, do you see your company attracting more youngsters into buying more insurance? Could you provide a demographic breakdown of your existing customer base, if possible?

So far, 95 percent of the policies we have sold are to customers below the age of 44. Within this group, we see a mix -- about 50 percent are first-time insurance buyers, while the other 50 percent already have some form of life insurance but believe it is inadequate as they progress in life. Moreover, at an industry level, we have observed that people aged between 25 and 35 are more agile and willing to adapt to new things if they see additional value in their lives. The convenience of sitting at home, managing their policies online, and being able to communicate directly with the company makes digital adoption inevitable. That said, do we believe people will stop buying insurance offline or through traditional provisions? Not entirely. Many still prefer conventional methods and are accustomed to dealing with mutual intermediaries in certain aspects. However, we strongly believe that there is a significant segment -- around 200 million digitally savvy customers -- who prefer getting things done through apps and will be our key customer base.

Currently, one of the most debated topics in the insurance sector is open architecture for individual agents, with some companies opposing it. What are your thoughts on this?

While companies might be thinking from their own perspective, we need to focus on what customers truly need. If we genuinely believe that customers should have choices, then those options should be readily available to them. A customer may be in touch with an agent from a particular company, but if they are interested in a different product or want to explore other options, there is no reason they should not have access to that choice. Whether this is facilitated through brokers or agents depends on the reach of the respective distribution channels, but ensuring that customers have the freedom to choose is essential.

ACKO recently entered the life insurance space with a flexi-term plan. Do you have plans to launch more products? Looking ahead, what would your ideal product mix look like in the future?

In considering what types of products to offer, we recognised that life insurance companies sell both protection and savings-oriented products. However, we believe that savings needs are best met through other means, such as fixed deposits, mutual funds, and equities. The true need for insurance is protection, and that is what we have been working toward. We have focused on meeting protection needs through both group platforms -- such as the group credit life product we launched in August 2023 -- and now the retail side with a pure-term insurance product. We have kept it super simple, avoiding complications like return-of-premium options or zero-cost insurance models.

So, you're not looking to enter the savings product space, such as ULIPs?

Our focus will continue to be on protection for the time being. There is still a lot of work to be done on the term insurance side, which will remain our primary area of focus. Beyond that, we also need to consider another form of protection. While term insurance safeguards against the risk of premature death, there is also the risk of living too long without sufficient financial resources to meet future needs. The next natural step for us would be to develop products like pensions and annuities, which help people manage their finances as they age. Given increasing life expectancy, longevity risk is a growing concern, and we aim to address this before moving on to other areas.

How does ACKO plan to scale its distribution channels? Will you stick strictly to D2C, or are you considering exploring other channels as well?

To better serve our customers, we are open to expanding our presence through strategic partnerships, including B2B collaborations. Platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, or PhonePe do serve as strong acquisition channels. However, with the plans in place, we believe we can increase our customer base annually by fivefold for the next 2-3 years, solely through customers coming to our apps and websites, without any partnerships. I have not considered anything beyond this yet, but if it enhances the customer experience, we would explore other options.

What are your thoughts on the recent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) increase made during the Budget?

ACKO would remain open to opportunities based on where the interest comes from. If foreign entities show interest, rather than just domestic ones, we would certainly consider it. We welcome this regulatory reform.