Amazon may soon start selling insurance in India

Employees of Amazon India are seen behind a glass bearing the company's logo inside its office in Bengaluru

In a bid to strengthen its financial services segment, Amazon plans to join local rivals and sell insurance in India.

According to a report by BloombergQuint, Amazon’s filings with the Registrar of Companies indicates that the world’s largest online retailer will start by selling general, health and life insurance. It will lobby, secure and service insurance as a corporate agent.

The report quotes a source as saying that Amazon is yet to seek the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority’s approval, but is on track to do so.

The Seattle-based company already has been expanding and developing its payments business in the last two years and currently offers several payments services through its Amazon Pay app.

Amazon Pay recently acquired Bengaluru-based app aggregator Tapzo, invested $22 million in digital lending company Capital Float, and $12 million in digital insurance firm Acko General Insurance.

As per a report by Assocham-APAS, the overall insurance penetration in the country rose to 3.7 percent in 2017 from 2.7 percent in 2001, and the industry will be worth about $280 billion by 2020. Flipkart (backed by Walmart) is seeking approval from the insurance regulator and Paytm (backed by Alibaba) has already acquired a corporate licence.