Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa backed firm ties up with Karur Vysya Bank for bancassurance

• Digit Insurance has partnered with Karur Vysya Bank for bancassurance.
• The insurtech startup is backed by Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa’s Fairfax group.
• The startup was also listed in the global Fintech 250 list by CB Insights, being the only Indian company to do so.

Karur Vysya Bank (KVB) will sell insurance products from Digit Insurance, a company backed by Fairfax Holdings owned by the Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa.

“Together, we are looking forward to delivering innovative products like the ones aimed for catering insurance needs of SMEs. We are sure that our customers will get the best attention from Digit in terms of pricing and settlements,” said P R Seshadri, MD & CEO, Karur Vysya Bank.

Many Indian banks have been venturing into bancassurance including the likes of State Bank of India and Axis Bank, diversifying their offerings to include insurance. Through this partnership, Digit Insurance and KVB will target the SMEs of India.

KVB has 750 branches with a large presence in South India.

“KVB has a strong customer base of Small & Medium Enterprise (SME) customers and that is one segment which is hugely underinsured in India. Therefore, this tie-up will help us reach out to the SMEs in India with our innovative solutions that can also help such SMEs to cover for business interruption & loss with a fixed benefit, beyond the regular coverage available in the market,” Kamesh Goyal, Chairman of Digit Insurance said.

Digit Insurance, was founded by Goyal in 2016 and is backed by Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa’s Fairfax group. Watsa had pumped in $140 million into the insurtech startup. In May 2019, it was reported that Fairfax might invest more into the startup.

The startup was also listed in the global Fintech 250 list by CB Insights, being the only Indian company to do so.