The eCommerce giant’s Amazon Pay service will sell car and bike insurance.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced Thursday that its Amazon Pay service had begun to offer two and four-wheeler insurance policies in India, in partnership with Acko General Insurance Ltd. (The Amazon blog)

Amazon Pay is a service that allows a customer to use the payment methods already associated with their Amazon account to make payments for goods, services, and donations on third-party websites, in apps, and using Alexa.

The Pay service offers  UPI, wallet, and co-branded credit card services to users. It is a step in the ladder of the online shopping giant’s ambitions to ultimately offer the full bouquet of financial services in the country.

Amazon now an insurtech?

India’s army of insurance agents, which peddle insurance on a commission basis, now have another online competitor to worry about. They were already a threatened species when online digital platforms such as PolicyBazaar offered an insurance marketplace that simplified the process of purchasing coverage.

Now there’s an 800-pound gorilla in the room in the guise of Amazon as an insurance corporate agent.

The company said in a blog that customers could purchase insurance in less than two minutes with no paperwork. Some features:

• Instant quotation on providing basic details
• Simple and easy to understand
• Purchase in a few, easy steps
• Policy in an email inbox in less than 2-minutes
• Claims are hassle-free
  • Zero paperwork
  • On-hour pickup
  • 3-day assured claim servicing
  • 1-year repair warranty
  • Optional cash settlement for low-value claims

Acko General Insurance

Acko launched in 2016 as India’s first digital insurance company – an insurtech. The company has sold insurance to over 50 million customers to date.

The company is backed by Amazon, Accel, Catamaran Ventures, SAIF Partners, Swiss Re Transamerica Ventures, and seasoned investors like Ashish Dhawan, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Hemendra Kothari, Atul Nishar, Rajeev Gupta, Venk Krishnan, and Subba Rao. Its latest round of funding has also added Binny Bansal, RPS ventures and Intact ventures to its list of investors.

Amazon led a $12 million funding round in Acko in 2018.

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