Life is all about unplanned events and unimagined accidents–sweet or sour. Insurance acts as a shield against such unexpected situations and states of perplexity. Organizations with thoughtful and adept leaders have been mindfully providing insurance policies for decades.

As advanced techniques are significantly altering the insurance market, very few leaders have been able to incorporate technology and innovation into their insurance products. Ravi Mathur is a brilliant brain and a product-minded software engineer who takes pride in offering technology-first insurance products to his customers.

Being a Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Insurance Samadhan, Ravi leads the development and implementation of India’s first Technical Insurance Redressal Platform. With a strong technical background and visionary approach, he has been creating efficient solutions, understanding user behaviour and adding value to customers.

This Pundit of technology, an Engineer, entrepreneur, Shark Tank participant, and public speaker, has shared his journey in an exclusive interview with CIOLook India. Here are the snippets:

Insurance Samadhan has emerged as India’s leading company in its niche. Could you share the guiding philosophy that has propelled your organization’s success?

From day one, the philosophy of Insurance Samadhan has been to put the customer first. Every decision we have made, whether big or small, has been made with an eye on our customers. If that decision adds any value to the customer, we execute. The customer is the most important stakeholder of the business, and it should remain the same however big you grow. You build a solution, and the endeavour should always be to optimize for user experience.

The industrial landscape is continually evolving. Please brief our audience about your firm’s USPs and how you are currently positioned as one of the best transformational companies in its sector.

Insurance Samadhan is India’s first technical platform for resolving Insurance grievances. We are a category creator business. We are proud to share that from being no reference point in this domain, Insurance Samadhan is now considered the reference point in the insurance resolution industry. Along with the above, our USP is that we don’t sell any insurance or financial products in any form. We are a successful fee-based platform that only charges people once we have resolved their insurance grievances.

Your influential leadership style is often recognized as a driving force behind Insurance Samadhan’s achievements. Could you shed light on your approach to leadership and team building within the organization? 

Leadership style is pretty simple. You have to know your team beyond the professionals they are. We have always believed in a lean team philosophy, so it has been easy to forge bonds with people. I am a big Dhoni fan, so I follow his open-door policy. My team can access me for anything and everything they want to discuss. Good and smart people always look forward to opportunities to grow. So, if you must keep providing them with challenges, which is a given in our case, as we are dealing with a problem with no reference point, it becomes easier for you to lead people.

The essence of technology lies in innovation, disruptions, and enhancing the end-user experience. How does Insurance Samadhan strike a balance between operational efficiency and customer satisfaction?

Customers are the most important stakeholders, but sometimes, they don’t know what they want or can’t articulate it. You have to be able to filter out the noise from the feedback and then act on the same. If there has to be a call between operational efficiency and customer satisfaction—it has to be customer satisfaction every single time. You must play the long-term game and keep optimizing for operational efficiency. It isn’t easy, but if you have to take a hit to your operational efficiency metric today to enhance long-term customer satisfaction, you should do it.

Digitalization and technological advancements are crucial aspects of the modern industrial ecosystem. How does your company integrate these principles into its core functioning and contribute to a technovative future?

At Insurance Samadhan, we have had a tech-first approach from day one, which has been the biggest reason for us scaling with our small team. Our headcount since our Shark Tank Episode was aired has only doubled, but we have grown close to 8x in our top line of business. Our latest offering, KYP (Know your policy), which has become the talk of the town, is again a revolutionary product uniquely global in nature. You just upload your insurance policy doc in our app, which dissects your policy and presents it to you in the most simplified manner. We are solving the painful issue of a common person getting to understand his insurance policy, and if there are any issues with it, we assist in solving that also.

The workforce is the cornerstone of any successful organization. How does Insurance Samadhan foster a culture of growth, skill development and empowerment among its employees?

We are proud of the team we have built at Insurance Samadhan. When we started, we had to pick freshers and train them as we had no industry reference to pick the workforce from. We were doing a unique service for which we had to make our processes. This led to an open field whereby everyone had an equal opportunity for growth. We constantly motivate people to do skill-based courses and have also posted some of our success stories on social media forums. The philosophy is simple: a growing team will build a growing organisation.

As a leader in India’s industrial sector, your company has likely faced its share of challenges. Could you share an instance where your team’s resilience and ingenuity triumphed over adversity?

When we started, we were actually a bit sceptical of how the insurance industry would react to such a platform, but to our amazement, the industry has been supportive. Businesses are a way for the Indian industry to accelerate its economic potential and capacity.

What would you advise other budding entrepreneurs aspiring to venture into tech?

Build for the customer. Use tech to solve for customer experience. Don’t be afraid to iterate multiple times. Don’t wait to make the perfect solution; ship as fast and as often as possible. The real test of the product is the market. Find a specific niche or problem you are passionate about and have a market need. Focusing on a niche allows you to effectively stand out and address a particular segment. Build a strong professional network within the tech industry. Seek mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs who can provide guidance based on their successes and failures.

Looking to 2024, what is your vision for Insurance Samadhan? How do you aspire to continue significantly impacting India’s transformational, tech-powered, innovative future landscape?

Our vision for the company is to be the most trusted tech platform for enhancing faith in the insurance ecosystem. We strive to demystify insurance through technology, making it easier for individuals to understand policies, coverages, and claims processes. By fostering transparency and accessibility, we aim to empower individuals to make informed decisions about their insurance needs. We will keep working towards the same.