Digit

[glider3834]

Digit Insurance, a general insurance company offering health, car, bike and travel insurance, has been named one of the top 250 fintech companies globally using technology to transform financial services by CB Insights, a US-based market intelligence agency. Digit is the only Indian insurance company featured in the CB Insights Fintech 250 list.

 

https://www.apnnews.com/digit-an-indian-insurance-company-to-make-it-to-cb-insights-fintech-250-list/

[glider3834]

https://www.fortuneindia.com/venture/we-knew-if-we-give-good-service-and-products-we-will-pull-through/106016

[nwoodman]

Never Been A More Exciting Time To Be In General Insurance, Says Digit Insurance’s Goyal (moneycontrol.com) - OCTOBER 15, 2021

 

A few key quotes:

 

Q. From Digit’s perspective, how has the journey been so far?

"Our customer ratings substantially improved on the back of digital and self-service processes and subsequent investments have gone here. Last year, we saw growth of 44 percent. In the current year, as the second wave hit, many players had stopped underwriting Covid-19 health insurance but we continued to do that and other business lines also saw a good amount of growth. So far, the first half has been good and growth has been almost 67 percent."

 

Q. How is your solvency ratio looking like?

"It was 180 as of June 30. After the approval of the recent capital raise I would expect it to be more than 300 by December 31. It will be one of the highest in the industry. Hoping the approval should come sometime this month and we will close the transaction within thirty days."

 

Q. Any plans on listing?

"Do we want to list? Yes. When? We don’t know at this stage. This is something we always thought that we wanted to be a listed company and have completed four years, we have raised a recent capital round. We will see where we are in 6-12 months’ time."

 

 

Edited October 17, 2021 by nwoodman

[glider3834]

thanks nwoodman

 

re Digit capital raise 

 

Q. How is your solvency ratio looking like?

It was 180 as of June 30. After the approval of the recent capital raise I would expect it to be more than 300 by December 31. It will be one of the highest in the industry.

Hoping the approval should come sometime this month and we will close the transaction within thirty days.

 

from Q2 2021 results

 

as previously reported, upon closing of the Digit Insurance equity issuance in the third quarter, and upon final approval by the Indian government of its previously announced intention to increase foreign ownership limits, we anticipate recording an additional gain of approximately $1.4 billion or $46 in book value per basic share. 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by glider3834

[glider3834]

Kamesh Goyal is estimating they can get to an annualised run-rate of 6,500 crore (approx US$850 mil) in GWP by Oct-22 & expects to cross the 2% market share. Looks like they grew approx 4x faster than the rest of the industry in 1H FY22

 

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/banking/finance/insure/digit-insurance-eyes-rs-6500-cr-in-premia-sales-by-october-2022/articleshow/87081261.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

 

Fairfax-promoted Digit Insurance is confident of taking its premia sales to over Rs 6,500 crore when it completes five years of operations in the next October, a top official of the Bengaluru-based general insurer has said. 
 

While the industry grew 16-17 per cent in the first half, Digit has grown over 67 per cent to Rs 2,196 crore, driven primarily by the health segment, Goyal said.

"Going by the company's faster growth rate so far at close to Rs 2,200 crore in premia sales in the first half of FY22, we will easily cross the FY21's Rs 3,243 crore with a minor profit which was crimped by the pandemic claims," Goyal said.

He added that given a high base, "I hope to scale past Rs 6,500 crore with premia sales by the time we enter the sixth year of operation next October".
 

Goyal expects to cross the two per cent market share by then, from the current 1.68 per cent of the over Rs 2.2 lakh crore as of June 2021.

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by glider3834

[bluedevil]

5 hours ago, glider3834 said:

Kamesh Goyal is estimating they can get to an annualised run-rate of 6,500 crore (approx US$850 mil) in GWP by Oct-22 & expects to cross the 2% market share. Looks like they grew approx 4x faster than the rest of the industry in 1H FY22

 

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/banking/finance/insure/digit-insurance-eyes-rs-6500-cr-in-premia-sales-by-october-2022/articleshow/87081261.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

 

Fairfax-promoted Digit Insurance is confident of taking its premia sales to over Rs 6,500 crore when it completes five years of operations in the next October, a top official of the Bengaluru-based general insurer has said. 
 

While the industry grew 16-17 per cent in the first half, Digit has grown over 67 per cent to Rs 2,196 crore, driven primarily by the health segment, Goyal said.

"Going by the company's faster growth rate so far at close to Rs 2,200 crore in premia sales in the first half of FY22, we will easily cross the FY21's Rs 3,243 crore with a minor profit which was crimped by the pandemic claims," Goyal said.

He added that given a high base, "I hope to scale past Rs 6,500 crore with premia sales by the time we enter the sixth year of operation next October".
 

Goyal expects to cross the two per cent market share by then, from the current 1.68 per cent of the over Rs 2.2 lakh crore as of June 2021.

 

 

 

 

Wow!

 

 

[nwoodman]

6 hours ago, glider3834 said:

Kamesh Goyal is estimating they can get to an annualised run-rate of 6,500 crore (approx US$850 mil) in GWP by Oct-22 & expects to cross the 2% market share. Looks like they grew approx 4x faster than the rest of the industry in 1H FY22

 

Based on the pickup in insurance after the second wave of COVID-19/Delta, that doesn't sound like a stretch at all.   An update of the monthly IRDAI figures below, the different scales masks Digit's impressive growth.  The overall insurance market is off to the races and Digit has hit the "nitro button".

 

 

Oh and btw Thomas Cook just hit a 52W high

Edited October 19, 2021 by nwoodman

[nwoodman]

Another article, they must be doing the rounds

 

Digit Insurance to use funds to grow market share - Times of India (indiatimes.com)

 

Key points:

 

• "According to Goyal, the ability to raise capital puts Digit in an advantageous position. “Last year, many non-life insurers grew aggressively. This year, the first quarter has been tough and some insurers had to release their claims reserves. We have been a bit cautious and had a good combined ratio in Q1 this year,” he said.

• The non-life industry is capital-constrained with three state-owned companies in loss and several Indian promoters not in a position to infuse capital. According to Goyal, Digit will use its capital to provide capacity to Indian industry including thermal power where there are capacity constraints with reinsurers backing out due to green reasons.

• "Digit Insurance has also reduced dependency on its call centre by enabling service requests on WhatsApp using artificial intelligence. “Earlier, for one lakh policies, we were handling 1,800 calls a day. Now, with 10x the number of policies, the call volume is around 2,300. We have, however, received 72,000 service requests on WhatsApp,” said Goyal."

 

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by nwoodman

[glider3834]

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/startup/what-is-driving-optimism-in-the-indian-insurtech-space-7688641.html

 

At least 30 percent of first-time insurance buyers over the next few years will be the younger population in the age bracket of 16 to 21 years. They are digital natives and their buying experience and expectations around their experience will be completely digital,” says Jaikrishnan.

He expects insurtech aggregators and brokers to grow five-fold over the next few years. Back-end service providers and pure tech insurance service provider companies are likely to see year-on-year growth of around 50 percent as capabilities will have to be added to cater to growing demand

[nwoodman]

Decent increase in GPW for Digit in October, the numbers are jumpy MoM so can't read too much into it. For the 9 months they hold a 1.8% market share (85% YoY Growth).  However in October they wrote 2.8% of total GPW including stand alone health insurers. Added Acko GI to the chart for comparison.

 

[glider3834]

11 hours ago, nwoodman said:

Decent increase in GPW for Digit in October, the numbers are jumpy MoM so can't read too much into it. For the 9 months they hold a 1.8% market share (85% YoY Growth).  However in October they wrote 2.8% of total GPW including stand alone health insurers. Added Acko GI to the chart for comparison.

 

 

1.8% I believe thats a record market share for them - we have to take IRDAI numbers with pinch of salt I think because they are not audited & 3rd party but still I think it does indicate Digit are continuing to generate premium at very strong growth rate - so they look to be on track

[glider3834]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-15/softbank-backed-policybazaar-jumps-in-mumbai-trading-debut

PB Fintech Ltd., the operator of online insurance marketplace Policybazaar, surged as much as 23% in Mumbai, joining a flurry of Indian companies that recently jumped on their first day of trading. 

The startup climbed as high as 1,205 rupees as of 10:04 a.m. local time, after pricing shares in the initial public offering at 980 rupees apiece, the top of an indicative range. It raised about 57 billion rupees ($761 million) in the IPO that saw almost 17 times demand for shares on sale. 

[glider3834]

Digit wins Digital Insurer of the Year award at 25th Asia Insurance Industry Awards 2021

https://www.apnnews.com/digit-wins-digital-insurer-of-the-year-award-at-25th-asia-insurance-industry-awards-2021/

[MMM20]

"Digit Insurance aiming for deeper market penetration"

 

https://telanganatoday.com/digit-insurance-aiming-for-deeper-market-penetration

 

 

[StubbleJumper]

7 minutes ago, MMM20 said:

"Digit Insurance aiming for deeper market penetration"

 

https://telanganatoday.com/digit-insurance-aiming-for-deeper-market-penetration

 

 

Not sure what to think about digital penetration...  

 

SJ

[glider3834]

closing in on 2% market share

 

[glider3834]

https://bfsi.eletsonline.com/our-aim-is-to-empower-humans-with-technology-and-not-replacing-them-vijay-kumar-ceo-and-principal-officer-go-digit-general-insurance/

[glider3834]

https://m.timesofindia.com/business/india-business/digit-first-unicorn-of-2021-in-top-10-non-life-insurers/articleshow/88600245.cms

[glider3834]

Probably the best interview I have seen with Kamesh CEO Digit (tip: you will need to turn the volume right up)

 

[Viking]

1 hour ago, glider3834 said:

Probably the best interview I have seen with Kamesh CEO Digit (tip: you will need to turn the volume right up)

 

@glider3834 thanks for posting. Very humble man; comfortable in his own skin. I found the comments regarding Prem to be interesting (about 28 min mark). The relationship with Kamesh (before Digit was a twinkle in his eye) was built over many years with lots of work from Prem. And now Fairfax has a significant stake in Digit. We like to hammer on Prem. Digit is a great example of Prem at his best. Relationship builder. Trusted. Risk taker.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Viking

[MMM20]

https://valueandopportunity.com/2022/02/15/a-first-look-into-the-insurtech-chainsaw-massacre-part-1/

 

Got me thinking. Would Digit be marked down 50-80%+ if they raised capital today? Too negative?

[glider3834]

1 hour ago, MMM20 said:

https://valueandopportunity.com/2022/02/15/a-first-look-into-the-insurtech-chainsaw-massacre-part-1/

 

Got me thinking. Would Digit be marked down 50-80%+ if they raised capital today? Too negative?

Digit is a high growth digital insurer with a sustainable business model (profitable on IFRS basis in year 3) - I wouldn't put Lemonade or Root in that category IMO - they are are losing bucketloads of money ,operating in very competitive, mature markets & have narrow product offerings.

 

Look with Digit on valuation - gut instinct probably bit lower but not a drawdown of the size you have indicated. We may never find out for certain because Digit have indicated they don't need to raise capital now & also that they are better capitalised than a lot of their insurer competitors (which actually gives them a competitive advantage).

 

Its worth noting too that Digit have increased their market share by around 25% from 1.6% (mar-21) to 2% (Jan-22) of non-life market so the underlying IV has grown since the time of July capital raise to current IMO

 

I think this article probably makes some good points on your question 

 

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/technology/ceo-turns-back-to-private-markets-after-reverse-merger-derailment-324535.aspx

 

 “Now that the public markets are depressed, it’s causing valuations in the private market to be a little bit lower, but not quite as extreme, right?”

In other words, the private markets continue to have an appetite for private technology investments, though they’re slightly more sober about it.

“There’s still a lot of [venture capital] appetite,” Harper said.

 

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by glider3834

[nwoodman]

New CEO at Digit

 

https://www.livemint.com/insurance/news/digit-insurance-appoints-jasleen-kohli-as-new-md-and-ceo/amp-11650348439787.html

 

The 42-year-old Jasleen Kohli will be one of the youngest CEOs in the insurance industry, as per the company release 

 

With 19 years worth of experience in the life and general insurance industry, Kohli last served as the director at Allianz Technology before joining Digit as the CDO in 2017

[nwoodman]

A very impressive set of results for Digit.  They have now crossed the RS 5000 crore (USD650M) in GWP

 

"Digit insurance said that in terms of written premiums in a year, the growth was seen at 62 per cent in FY21-22 whereas the industry on an average grew by 10.9 per cent. In FY21-22, across all products, Digit sold over 77.6 lakh policies, an increase of 40 per cent compared to the previous financial year.   Further, the company’s health portfolio saw a growth of 132 per cent over FY20-21, led by group business."

 

Digit Insurance crosses Rs 5,000 crore yearly revenue milestone - BusinessToday

Digit Insurance rakes in over INR50bn in GWP | Insurance Business Asia (insurancebusinessmag.com)

 

[glider3834]

 

https://entrackr.com/2022/05/exclusive-digit-valuation-surpasses-4-bn-in-new-fund-infusion/

Edited May 4, 2022 by glider3834