Aquaconnect & Alliance Insurance Broker offer insurance to farmers

The aquaculture tech pioneer 'Aquaconnect' has partnered with India's leading insurance service providers Alliance Insurance Brokers for shrimp farmers' insurance program. After loan benefit, this is the next step towards the company's vision to strengthen shrimp farmers' financial inclusion. This partnership will benefit 1.5 lakh shrimp farmers, across India.

Under this partnership, Aquaconnect will offer risk management services to the insurance partners, including farm data collection, ground validation by Aquaculture officers, and AquaCRED dashboard support. The partnership aims at making comprehensive insurance available for shrimp farmers to mitigate weather and disease-related challenges. In addition to this, farmers will also get an Aquaconnect farm advisory app and options to buy high-quality inputs (feed, healthcare products & farm equipment) from the Aquaconnect platform.

In the past, low technology adoption and the absence of farm-level production data made it almost impossible for insurance companies to extend their products to farmers. As a result, farmers continued to bear a high financial risk due to the loss of crops. AquaConnect's full-stack technology approach endeavors to bring aquaculture farmers into a formal insurance framework through their data-driven approach. Aquaconnect platform's near real-time data brings transparency, hence easing the monitoring and claim settlement process.

Combination of data inputs from 'eyes in the sky' (secondary data from satellite remote sensing solutions) and 'boots on the ground' (primary data from the app), supported by machine learning algorithms, bring transparency and predictability to the entire process and helps lower risks associated with aquaculture insurance. Further, hassle-free, low-cost financial and insurance products incentivize technology's adoption throughout the industry and de-risk the farmers.

On this partnership, Rajamanohar, chief executive officer and founder of AquaConnect, said, "While Indian aquaculture is a multi-billion-dollar industry, contributing to 20% of overall agricultural exports, losses due to disease are the biggest impediments to further growth of this sector. We are happy to partner with Alliance Insurance Brokers to offer the insurance product that would help farmers mitigate the losses in shrimp farming".

"Aquaconnect's full-stack technology solutions enable risk profiling of farms with high data integrity and aids transparent and speedy claim management through readily available production level data. Such interventions can greatly improve the efficiency of BFSI institutions' engagement with the aquaculture farmers," said Amit Salunkhe, head of BFSI partnerships, AquaConnect.

"As an organization driven by sectoral approach Alliance possesses functional expertise underwriting, claim, and advisory services to ensure efficiency in the deliverables. Aquaculture farming and the seafood industry being a niche sector, we have developed a strategic partnership with Aquaconnect to help farmers and seafood industry clients mitigate the risk. The seafood industry is projected to be over Rs 50,000 crore, our focus is to bring tailor-made solution and try to structure a long-term sustainable insurance solution to this sector"- Aatur Thakkar, co-founder, Alliance Insurance Brokers.

Headquartered in Chennai, Aquaconnect is a full-stack aquaculture technology venture that works with shrimp and fish aquaculture farmers to improve their farm productivity and market linkage through AI and satellite remote sensing technology.

Aquaconnect is a platinum winner of the Agriculture insuretech award by World Bank Group and received FICCI's 'Best Agri Startup in Application of Digital Technologies Award' earlier this month.