India’s insurance distribution has long run on commissions, a structure that rewards sales volume over customer outcomes. A new entrant, RiskPe, is testing whether a fee-based alternative can work at scale, built on the conviction of three founders who experienced the industry’s core conflict from three different sides.
RiskPe was co-founded by Krit Sharma, Surendra Sharma and Saket Prag. Surendra Sharma’s more than twenty years in commercial insurance distribution gave him a front-row view of how commission incentives could quietly steer recommendations away from a client’s real needs. Krit Sharma encountered the same structural issue while working with an insurance aggregator’s distribution business, watching how commercial incentives shaped which products customers see first. Saket Prag brought a technology lens to the problem, building the platform that would let independent, fee-based advice actually scale as a business rather than remain a boutique service for the few who could access it.
The company charges clients a direct advisory fee to manage insurance portfolios, negotiate premiums, and track renewals, independent of where the underlying policy was purchased. The founders argue this removes the single biggest source of misaligned advice in Indian insurance distribution, where an agent’s incentive and a customer’s interest do not always align.
Its most notable product is a claim simulation tool, which models a policyholder’s specific situation against their actual policy document to estimate a likely claim payout before any claim is filed, accounting for sub-limits, co-payments and depreciation schedules that typically surface only at the point of settlement.
Beyond simulation, RiskPe offers AI-backed policy insight reports that highlight coverage gaps, a claims recovery desk for disputed settlements, and an outsourced insurance management offering aimed at corporate HR teams handling group health and employee benefit programs, a segment traditionally managed through fragmented broker relationships and manual spreadsheets.
Whether fee-based insurance advisory gains real traction will depend on whether Indian consumers, long conditioned to advice that appears free but isn’t, are willing to pay directly for advice with no hidden incentive attached.
