Express Group acquires insurance web aggregator MyInsuranceClub

The Indian Express Group Group announced Thursday its entry into insurance web aggregation space by acquiring 100 per cent stake in MyInsuranceClub. While the deal was signed earlier this year, it got concluded recently after receiving the approval of the regulator — Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).

As an insurance web aggregator, selling both life and non-life insurance products, MyInsuranceClub (MIC) is expected to benefit from the reach of The Indian Express Group, which is one of the world’s largest digital news groups reaching over 140 million users/ month (according to Comscore Media Metrix May 2020) across the world in six languages.

An IRDAI-licensed insurance web aggregator, MIC has been an early entrant into the insurance comparison business in India. Despite the change in the ownership, MIC founders Deepak Yohannan (CEO) and Manoj Aswani (COO) will continue to run and operate the business under the new shareholders and will report to Sanjay Sindhwani – Digital CEO, Indian Express Group.

Anant Goenka, executive director of The Indian Express Group, said, “We liked the space and the people who are running the company, plus we saw synergies with our media business which now reaches more than 140M unique users/month. With low insurance penetration in India, this space offers huge opportunity for growth. As a media and marketing organisation our skills in building a strong and trusted brand will work to the advantage of MyInsuranceClub to enable it to become a significant player in this business, and be a first step for us to diversify our revenue streams beyond advertising.”

Yohannan said, “This acquisition offers two benefits… Firstly, for any insurance business to succeed, trust plays a crucial role. With brand “Indian Express” on board, we hope to solve that problem to a large extent. Secondly, the group has very large digital footprint in multiple regional languages. This can be a great catalyst for an online-only business like ours. We are very excited in this new phase of our entrepreneurial journey.”

While MIC has been focussing on selling term insurance and health insurance plans, the company said that it will now also focus on the other retail plans like motor and travel insurance. On the customer acquisition front, the company has built a strong organic channel and gets a little less than half a million monthly users, totally free of cost. The Indian Express Group was advised by Lastaki Advisors for this transaction.

Source: Financial Express