How Ditto Insurance Rebuilt Trust in One of India’s Most Broken Industries

In India, insurance has long been a paradoxical phenomenon. It’s a product everyone needs, yet one that most people hesitate to buy. With over 25 life insurance companies offering traditional and ULIP policies, and another 25 general insurers selling a range of products from health to motor insurance, the landscape is cluttered and confusing. Insurance penetration remains at just around 4%, and aggressive agents and brokers often drive the buying experience. Trust deficits run deep. Customers usually assume that insurers will cheat them, while insurers fear that customers will withhold information. It is an industry where both sides approach each other cautiously.

Amid this backdrop, a small team of four set out not to overhaul the industry through complexity, but through simplicity and honesty. They believed that trust could be rebuilt, one conversation at a time, and that conviction eventually led to what is now known asDitto Insurance.

The origins trace back to 2019, when three IIM Ahmedabad classmates—Pawan Kumar Rai, Shrehith Karkera, and Bhanu Harish Gurram launched Finshots, a three-minute financial newsletter designed to simplify finance for everyday people. Six months later, Bhanu’s brother Lokesh, an IIT alumnus, joined the trio. Their content steadily grew in popularity, but one moment changed everything. A simple bar-graph video on Jet Airways went viral on Twitter, catching the attention of Nithin and Nikhil Kamath of zerodha. A meeting was arranged, and in a single conversation, the Finshots team received ₹4 crore in funding.

Finshots soon gained over half a million subscribers, yet the founders still lacked a sustainable business model. Their early financial advisory experiments faltered during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people became anxious about investing. With the runway shrinking, the team faced a pivotal question: What essential category needs fixing, is widely misunderstood, and still deeply underserved? The answer, though not glamorous, was unavoidable insurance.

At first glance, insurance didn’t seem like an ideal startup idea. Policybazaar dominated digital distribution, holding a market share of close to 80–90%. The sector had been around for decades and was loaded with intermediaries. But the founders noticed something unusual. Despite the monopoly, customer satisfaction was abysmally low. Usually, a monopoly means one of two things: the product is excellent, or the barriers are too high for others to compete. Here, neither was true. The product experience was poor, the market was open, and yet customers felt pressured, confused, or misled. This contradiction signaled an opportunity.

When Ditto entered the market, it did something radically different. Instead of trying to outsell everyone, they chose to out-explain everyone. The founders didn’t even have a license to sell insurance in the early days, so they did the only thing they could: talk. They spent 40–50 minutes on calls with people, patiently answering questions and clarifying doubts. Because they couldn’t pitch anything, they simply helped. Strangely enough, that made people trust them. Customers returned, recommended others, and bonded with a company that wasn’t trying to push anything on them.

From those early conversations emerged Ditto’s defining philosophy: insurance isn’t a product problem; it’s a trust problem. And trust requires time, honesty, and consistency.

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One of Ditto’s boldest decisions was in hiring. Rather than bringing in traditional insurance agents, people conditioned to hit targets and maximize commissions, the team went to Tier 1 and Tier 2 colleges. They recruited bright, empathetic graduates and trained them from the ground up. These weren’t “agents”; they were advisors. Sales numbers didn’t incentivize them; instead, they were measured by the depth of their knowledge, the quality of their consultations, and customer satisfaction. In an industry that celebrated speed and volume, Ditto rewarded patience and clarity.

Another major shift was in product recommendations. Most platforms offer dozens of insurers to appear impartial. Ditto instead curated only two or three insurers based on reliability, claim handling, and long-term service quality. If an insurer’s service dropped, Ditto simply stopped recommending them, even if they were a major partner. One such decision involved dropping one of India’s largest health insurers due to poor post-sales performance. This move invited backlash, but Ditto believed that if they couldn’t guarantee good service after a sale, they had no business recommending the policy.

Their approach to customer conversations also broke industry norms. While most insurance call centers expect advisors to make 40–50 calls a day, Ditto is optimized for just 7–8 high-quality consultations. They engaged in more extended conversations, video calls, and sessions that included family members. It was slow, deliberate, and deeply educational, something unheard of in an industry obsessed with conversion funnels. As the founders often said, “Insurance isn’t sold. It’s explained.”

The most significant advantage Ditto carried into this market was Finshots. Years of consistent content had built a loyal, financially literate audience. When Ditto launched, they didn’t need to burn millions on ads or search engine bidding wars. They had a ready community of readers eager for honest advice, keeping customer acquisition costs low. Unlike many startups that bleed money acquiring users, Ditto broke even in its very first year. Renewals generated revenue without requiring marketing spend, enabling the business to scale profitably.

Over time, Ditto refused to chase easy money. They avoided ULIPs and endowment plans, even though they offer high commissions. They never pushed customers to buy expensive plans. They avoided insurer tie-ups that demanded higher volumes. Every decision was based on long-term trust rather than short-term numbers. The result was astonishing: over 35% of Ditto’s business today comes purely from referrals, compared to an industry average of 5 to 15%.

The outcomes speak for themselves. Ditto has grown at a remarkable 169% CAGR since 2021, clocked ₹52 crore in revenue for FY23–24, and earned ₹13.5 crores in profit with a substantial 26% margin. With less than ₹30 crore in funding and a 4.9-star rating based on over 15,000+ google reviews, the company has been recognized among LinkedIn’s Top 20 Indian Startups in 2023.

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In a world obsessed with speed, blitzscaling, and aggressive metrics, Ditto chose patience. It chose education over aggression, transparency over pressure, and principle over convenience. It built not just an insurance distribution platform, but a trustworthy brand in a category where trust is often missing.

Ditto’s story isn’t one of explosive growth fueled by capital. It’s a story of compounding trust, quiet integrity, and a belief that doing right by the customer is the most sustainable business model of all.