Offering digital crop insurance solutions, Wingsure way
The US-based insurtech platform aims at bridging gaps in insurance protection space; New age solution expected to disrupt crop insurance market!
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IDENTIFYING the gaps in crop insurance market, US-based insurtech platform Wingsure has set an ambitious goal to bring change in the lives and livelihoods of farmers. Not only risk management, the farmer-first digital insurance solution enterprise wants to leverage new technologies such as, machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) for crop protection.
Indian farmers are reluctant towards crop insurance unless it is mandatorily linked with a farm loan. There is a lot of trust deficit among the farming community. Even the government sponsored crop insurance schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS) were rejected by a number of farmers due to various reasons. The gap between economic losses and those that are insured widened in 2020 due to the pandemic. According to a Swiss Re Institute study, the global insurance protection gap reached a new high of $1.4 trillion. There is a broader gap in India as the farmers opt out of insurance products owing to delay in claim settlements. Most of the non-loanee farmers feel that paying premium as a mere waste of money.
In such a scenario, Wingsure is aggressively building its team across the country and partnering with several academic research institutions and NGOs that are already working at the ground level. It connects insurance companies, brokers and agri-businesses with small farmers through their mobile devices. The insurtech platform aims to deliver instant access to personalised insurance products.
Speaking to Bizz Buzz, Wingsure Founder and CEO Avi Basu said, "Insurance industry, private or public, couldn't engage with the farmers. With the aid of AI-driven insurance app, we aspire to penetrate crop insurance market in India, the way mobile phone disrupted in rural areas of the country. Our application can bridge insurance protection gaps using AI and ML to rapidly process insurance claims." Insurance protection gap is the difference between the amount of insurance that is economically beneficial and the amount of coverage actually purchased. Farmers can insure crops with rapid claim resolution through mobile phones using the Wingsure app. Based on geospatial and AR technology, it can confirm the crop damage, identify the validity of insurance claims and make prompt settlement.
In addition to its advanced AI and ML, Wingsure combines voice prompts and natural language processing to allow farmers to speak in their native language. The platform can be scaled to integrate with existing mobile communication platforms and claims that previously took 3 to 12 months to complete can be verified and processed in minutes.
"Farmers are the foundation of our society, but many of them are exposed to risks that could cost them their livelihood and their land. We now have the technology to protect the small farmers anywhere in the country. Not only can we insure them, but by applying this kind of advanced technology, Wingsure can help farmers become more successful growers," Basu informed.
"Initial implementation will focus on India where 70 per cent of households are dependent on agriculture for their living. Many are located in remote areas without access to financial services and are unable to insure against crop failure or other unexpected events. Our platform provides services that were previously inaccessible to this enormous market, where 800 million people are agri-dependent."
