CRED has partnered with Acko Insurance to expand the offerings on its vehicle management platform, CRED Garage, marking the fourth insurer in its lineup. The addition of Acko, follows CRED’s partnerships with Zurich Kotak General Insurance, Go Digit General Insurance, and ICICI Lombard. The Acko partnership, which will go live on Monday, also introduces additional conveniences such as pick-up and drop facilities for vehicles involved in claims.
Launched in September last year, CRED Garage enables users to manage vehicle expenses, track insurance renewals and pollution certificate expiry dates, and keep a record of traffic challans. Currently, 4.4 million users manage 7 million registered vehicles on CRED Garage. The platform is free to use, with CRED generating revenue from commissions on insurance policies sold through its interface.
The origins of Garage are tied to specific patterns identified among CRED’s high-credit-score users, according to Akshay Aedula, Head of Product and Growth at CRED. “The story of Garage, the way we stumbled upon it, was actually similar to insights we had on payments and lending,” he said. “India today has 40 million unique credit card holders. That’s the audience that we cater to. We looked at how many privately owned cars there are in India—that number also was 40 million. Interestingly, one-third of all privately owned cars in India are owned by CRED members. Additionally, around 40% of these members own multiple vehicles.”
CRED Garage primarily targets users with high credit scores, offering discounts on insurance premiums as a reward for responsible financial behavior. These discounts range between 7.5% and 12.5%, depending on the user’s credit score. “People with good credit scores want to behave well and they show the right intent,” Aedula said , adding that insurers recognise the low-risk profile of CRED’s user base, which aligns with their own risk management goals. Although having a high credit score does not directly correlate to being a better driver or maintainer of a vehicle, Aedula pointed out that “there definitely is an intent to behave better, which is what insurers are recognising.”
“When we looked at industry data, we noticed that only 50% of overall vehicle policies are renewed before the due date. We felt that this is not necessarily because there isn’t an intent to renew, but because there wasn’t a user-friendly platform to track these events,” Aedula added. “If your insurance is lapsed, it leads to two things. One, there is more friction with the insurer, who then has to run secondary inspections on the vehicle to see if there are any other factors that need to be accounted for. Second, your premium increases.” CRED’s solution of linking users with better financial behaviour to premium discounts was seen as “an opportunity to solve for both sides of the equation,” according to Aedula. The platform has helped over 1.7 million members identify lapsed insurance. CRED reports that 93% of insurance sold on the platform comprises comprehensive policies, indicating a shift among its financially responsible users toward higher protection and peace of mind.
Insurance is the CRED’s first attempt at monetising its offerings within Garage, which also includes a ‘Glovebox’ feature, — a digital repository for essential documents such as registration certificates, insurance policies, and licenses. Users can also keep a track of pollution certificate renewals and traffic challans. “We thought it was important to have one platform for members to manage their vehicles. Owning and driving a vehicle seems to be riddled with anxiety because there is not one place to know that you are in control,” Aedula said. He added that the company does not immediately plan to monetise or build other solutions within Garage, and that it remains focused on expanding the insurance offerings, at least for the near future.
According to Aedula, “Insurance is already among the top three revenue drivers for CRED, alongside payments and lending.” Payments, credit, and insurance together account for 90% of the company’s revenue. In FY24, CRED reported Rs 2,473 crore in revenue, a 66% year-on-year increase, with net losses at Rs 1,644 crore, partly due to stock option expenses. Overall, CRED serves 13 million monthly active users, with around 11 million transacting regularly.
Operating under an IRDAI corporate agency licence, CRED can currently partner with up to nine insurers. Adding more than nine partners would require it to obtain an insurance brokerage licence. “We don’t want to work with tons of insurers for the sake of it,” Aedula said, noting that its expansion strategy prioritises user alignment over the volume of partnerships.
Since its founding, Cred has raised $866 million and was last valued at around $6.2 billion in 2022, according to Tracxn.