Buying insurance has become considerably easier in India. Understanding whether that insurance will actually protect a family when it matters, however, remains a different challenge. Customers today can choose from numerous insurers and products across health, life, motor and other categories, but that choice also brings complexity. Coverage limits, exclusions, documentation requirements, renewals and claims procedures are not always easy to navigate. At the same time, underinsurance remains a concern, particularly when policies purchased years earlier are not reassessed as incomes, liabilities and family responsibilities change. COVERKRAFT is addressing this gap by treating insurance as an ongoing protection relationship rather than a one-time policy purchase.
Established in 2024 and licensed by IRDAI as a Direct Insurance Broker across Life and General Insurance in July 2025, the Madhya Pradesh based company combines physical distribution with digital tools, customer education, policy management and claims assistance. Its proposition is built around a simple idea: customers should know what they are buying, why they need it and how to use it when the need arises.
At the helm is Vivek Lalan, Founder and Principal Officer, whose career spans nearly two decades across banking, insurance, risk management, distribution and rural markets. Beginning his professional journey after completing his MBA in 2005, Vivek moved from banking into insurance and subsequently worked across different distribution models and customer segments. His involvement in rural insurance since 2011, including experience around the early implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, gave him a close view of both the reach insurance had achieved and the protection gaps that remained.
Together with Umesh Soni and Satyendra Mishra, long-time industry colleagues who share this understanding of the market, Vivek established COVERKRAFT. Satyendra, an MBA, boasts an impressive track record of 20+ years within the insurance industry, having collaborated with renowned insurers such as ICICI Lombard, HDFC ERGO, and Future Generali. Satyendra's forte lies in adeptly steering teams and fostering strong government relations, underscoring his multifaceted expertise. Umesh Soni, a Mechanical Engineer by academic training, boasts 20+ years of rich and diverse professional experience across multiple sectors. Umesh has honed his expertise extensively, particularly in the rural insurance sector, collaborating with esteemed organizations such as HDFC ERGO GIC, ICICI Lombard, and Eicher Tractors.
For COVERKRAFT, transparency at the beginning is essential because many disputes at the claim stage originate in expectations that were never properly set during the saleUmesh Soni, Founder & Director; Satyendra Mishra, Founder & Director; Vivek Lalan, Founder & Principal Officer; Prasad Kulkarni, Executive Director,
The management team also includes Executive Director Prasad Kulkarni, who has results-driven professional experience of 30 years with over 24 years of General Insurance. Prasad has worked with Generali Central GIC, HDFC ERGO and ICICI Lombard in various leadership capacities focusing on motor claims, underwriting, crop insurance & process improvements.
Looking Beyond the Policy
COVERKRAFT emerged from years of observing gaps in how insurance reaches customers across rural and urban India. While rural households may understand crop insurance, risks involving health, life, accidents, vehicles and other assets often remain inadequately addressed. Urban customers, meanwhile, may be insured yet significantly underinsured, with outdated term coverage or health policies purchased without fully understanding exclusions, waiting periods and restrictions. COVERKRAFT therefore looks beyond quotations and individual policies. By understanding a customer’s broader risk profile, it aims to identify protection gaps across health, life, motor, critical illness and business exposures, building relationships across the insurance lifecycle.
“Instead of pursuing isolated transactions, the company seeks to deepen existing relationships by identifying these needs responsibly. This approach is supported by a strong emphasis on advisor training. Distribution partners are encouraged to explain exclusions and relevant conditions before the customer buys a policy. For us, transparency at the beginning is essential because many disputes at the claim stage originate in expectations that were never properly set during the sale”, speaks Vivek Lalan, Founder and Principal Officer.
Its selection of insurance partners follows a similar philosophy. Rather than allowing commission structures alone to determine what reaches the customer, the company considers factors such as service standards, claims experience and rejection patterns. The objective is to reduce some of the complexity customers face and help them choose from a more relevant set of options.
Turning Policy Management into an Everyday Experience
One of COVERKRAFT’s most important differentiators is its effort to solve what happens after a policy has been purchased. Insurance documents often remain scattered across emails, physical files, messaging applications and different insurer portals. In families with several vehicles and multiple health, life or other policies, keeping track of renewal dates and policy details can itself become a task. The company’s Policy Vault has been developed around this practical problem. Integrated into the mobile application, available across iOS and Android, it enables customers to consolidate policies onto a common dashboard, access them digitally and receive renewal reminders.
Interestingly, the relevance of this feature became apparent to Vivek through his own experience. While testing the platform and consolidating his family’s insurance portfolio, the team discovered that one two-wheeler had inadvertently been insured through two different channels, resulting in duplicate premium payments over multiple years. For someone with extensive insurance experience, the discovery demonstrated how easily policy management can become fragmented even within an informed household.
Policy Vault also addresses a more serious concern: a family may not know what insurance policies exist when the person responsible for managing them is no longer available. COVERKRAFT therefore enables users to prepare summaries of selected policies and share them with trusted people. This creates a basic continuity mechanism so that insurance purchased for a family does not become inaccessible precisely when it is required.
“The company views insurance as fundamentally a family proposition. Even when a policy belongs to an individual, there is often one family member who keeps track of documents, premiums, renewals and claims. By bringing this information into a common digital environment, we are attempting to make that responsibility easier to manage”, says Vivek Lalan.
Making Claims Part of the Relationship
If policy purchase establishes an insurance relationship, claims determine its credibility. Recognising this, COVERKRAFT began working on claims assistance even before its distribution operations had fully taken shape. The team initially assisted customers who were struggling with existing claims and, in doing so, gained first-hand visibility into the friction points that policyholders encounter. Some involved complicated procedures; others were relatively simple problems that could have been prevented through clearer communication or better documentation.
That experience has influenced the company’s customer-service model. COVERKRAFT assists customers through claims and, in certain circumstances, also supports people whose policies were not originally purchased through the firm. The thinking is that expertise should become most visible when customers actually need help, rather than only when a policy is being sold. “The company is also strengthening direct communication through its callcentre capabilities and mobile platform. Customer feedback is actively sought, including through interactions conducted by the leadership team. These conversations help validate whether customers have received appropriate information and whether policy details have been represented correctly”, adds Vivek Lalan.
Underlying this model is COVERKRAFT’s belief that India’s insurance future will not be a contest between advisors and digital platforms. Instead, the company expects assisted digital distribution to become increasingly relevant. A smartphone may provide access, but insurance decisions can still require explanation and human judgement. The firm therefore wants technology to empower advisors and customers rather than remove human assistance altogether.
This model is particularly relevant as the company expands specialised channels. Its tractor-insurance vertical, for example, recorded more than 2500 insured tractors and 50+ dealer partnerships in its first 8 months, demonstrating the potential of combining focused distribution partnerships with a scalable service infrastructure.
Expanding Access with Technology and AI
The next phase for COVERKRAFT will centre on geographic expansion, deeper digital capabilities and greater accessibility of insurance information. The company currently has a physical presence across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh and is extending its footprint into West Bengal, Odisha and Assam, along with hilly markets including Himachal Pradesh.
A significant technology initiative underway is an internal AI engine being developed around insurance purchase and education. “The ambition is to reduce the distance between complex policy wording and the simple questions customers actually want answered. Instead of searching through lengthy documents, a policyholder should eventually be able to ask whether a particular treatment is covered and receive an understandable response based on the policy”, shares Vivek Lalan.
Alongside AI, COVERKRAFT plans to continue strengthening Policy Vault, insurer integrations, specialised distribution verticals, advisor networks, claims support and customer education. Its physical expansion will therefore be accompanied by a digital layer intended to maintain consistency as the business reaches more customers and regions.
For Vivek and the team, scale is meaningful only when it preserves the original purpose of the business. COVERKRAFT is not trying to make insurance merely faster to purchase. It is working toward an ecosystem in which customers can understand their protection, keep it organised, revisit it as their circumstances change and receive assistance when a claim tests its value. In an industry ultimately built on promises about the future, that ability to remain present beyond the sale may prove to be its strongest foundation for trust.
