At last check, Amazon Inc. sells more than 353 million products — but that number has risen by one.
Reuters reported the mega eCommerce website will soon begin offering auto insurance in India, the first of its kind.
Acko General Insurance, a digital insurance startup in India, has reached an agreement with Amazon Pay, the unit’s payments arm in India, to offer car and motorcycle insurance, the company said in its blog.
The insurance is available on Amazon’s app and mobile website, the news service reported.
Amazon’s Prime customers are promised extra benefits and more discounts, Amazon said.
The global technology company based in Seattle will go head-to-head in competition with rivals in India including Paytm, the Indian online payment and financial technology company, and SoftBank’s insurance aggregator Policybazaar, Indian insurance aggregator and a global financial technology company.
India is seen as one the fastest growing markets for Amazon. But the deal will be subject to several regulatory hurdles.
“We will offer a product which is very competitively priced and easy to buy like our services on the eCommerce side of things, said Vikas Bansal, director and head of financial services at Amazon Pay India, in a statement, The Economic Times reported.
The collaboration with Amazon is expected to bring scale and reduce dealership commissions, according to Varun Dua, CEO of Acko General Insurance.
Two years ago, Amazon led a round of funding in Acko totaling $12 million with Ashish Dhawan, founder of PE firm ChrysCapital, and current backer Catamaran Ventures. That round brought the total amount of cash raised to $42 million.
Founded in 2016 by Varun Dua, Acko offers car, bike and mobile insurance. The company’s main competition is PolicyBachat, PolicyBazaar, Easypolicy and PolicyX.com. Acko received $30 million from investors in 2017, before it had even acquired a license to offer insurance.
At the time, Dua said the company will most likely work with Amazon on eCommerce coverage.
“The idea is to find some way to collaborate in the future,” Dua said. “We’re a new age insurance company and [Amazon] believes it can create value. They see that bundling financial service or something in the lending space [may] happen [in the future] given the data and numbers of users they sit on.”