Report: Amazon plans to become insurance agent

Amazon plans to become an insurance agent in India, according to documents filed with the company's government and reported by Bloomberg Quint.

Amazon India will sell life, health and general insurance as a corporate agent, according to its filings with the Registrar of Companies. However, it still has to gain final approval from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, according to the Bloomberg report.

Patrick Fallon/Bloomberg

The retail giant's overtures to insurance have been ramping up over the course of 2018. Earlier this year, Amazon made several investments in Acko, an Indian insurtech that's trying to be "the first all-digital carrier" in the country. A report in The Information quoted an anonymous source saying that Amazon was interested in tapping into its device ecosystem to sell homeowners coverage. And Reuters reported the company would launch a UK-based insurance aggregator.

Assuming Amazon clears all regulatory hurdles, its decision to start in India could make it a major player quickly. Insurance penetration -- a measure of the ratio of premium underwritten in a particular year to a country's GDP -- in India is only 3.7%, according to the Bloomberg article. In the United States, it's 11.3%.