ASC Enterprises, a company floated by media baron Subhash Chandra, is planning to offer insurance cover for mobile handsets.
ASC may tie up with an insurance company to offer the cover. Premium for the policy, which will cover theft, maintenance, and even repairs, is likely to be as low as Rs 50-Rs 200 annually.
"Our target is to provide insurance cover for at least one million mobile phones in the first year itself," Puneet Goenka, president and CEO of ASC, said.
Incidentally, ASC Enterprises runs the Agrani chain of retail stores for mobile phones across the country. Customers buying a cellphone from any of these stores will automatically be covered by the policy.
Those who have purchased their cellphone elsewhere can also bring their phone to an Agrani store, where the value of the handset will be assessed on various parameters (age, condition, etc) before the quantum of insurance cover is fixed.
The cover will be open for all brands and models of mobile phones.
ASC already operates 38 stores across the country. It is now adding 14 more. ASC also runs eight service centres. The insurance cover will be available at all Agrani stores.
On paying the basic premium of Rs 50 per annum, customers can avail of free maintenance and repairs for their mobile phone.
Goenka said the company planned to offer various types of covers -- insurance for only maintenance and repair without spare parts, insurance with spare parts, insurance against maintenance, repair and theft, and insurance against theft only.
Goenka said the company did not consider selling one million covers in the first year itself a major challenge, as it already sells over 80,000 mobile phones through its stores all over the country every month.
He acknowledged that customers could also get their cellphones insured individually through select nationalised insurance companies, but felt very few would opt to do so.
All said and done, the insurance cover could prove to be a major bonanza for the 15 million cellphone users across the country.
