Is there a minimum company size for group insurance?

Group cover generally starts from a small number of lives, and the exact minimum is set by each insurer rather than by us. Below that, the honest answer is individual cover rather than a group policy, and we will say so.

Do you work with companies that already have a broker?

Yes. There are two ways in. Either Ethika becomes your broker to the insurance market, or Ethika comes in alongside an existing broker as the claims and service partner, which is common where a global head office mandates the placement.

Who is Ethika not right for?

A buyer whose only question is the lowest premium, a company that wants cover placed but no servicing, and anyone looking for a promise that every claim will be approved, which no honest broker can offer.

Who we work for

Every company has one person the bad day lands on.

Q: Do you only work with technology companies?

No. The client book covers technology and product companies, global capability centres, manufacturing and plant-based employers, education, healthcare and services businesses.

Q: Do you work outside Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai?

Yes. Offices are in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai, and cover and claim support are run for employees wherever they are in India. The claims team sits in Hyderabad.

Q: Do you work with individuals, or only companies?

The main business is employers. Individual cover such as pet insurance, personal accident and top-up health is also placed, most often for the people inside companies we already work for.

Written by Susheel Agarwal, Founder of Ethika, an IRDAI-licensed insurance broker. Reviewed by Sandeep Mukka, Principal Officer.

Last reviewed: September 2026

Usually it is the founder, the HR head, or the one person at a plant everybody calls. Which chair you sit in changes what we look at first, what we build, and what we take off your desk. Six chairs below, described honestly, including the ones we are probably not right for.

750+ companies. 2,00,000+ lives. From a first group policy to a multi-entity programme.

Talk to us

20 minutes with a Growth Advisor. No obligation, and no quote pushed.

The short answer

Ethika works for Indian employers, from a founder buying a first group policy for twenty people to a rewards team running one programme across several entities and tens of thousands of lives. We place and service the cover, we run the everyday benefits alongside it, and when a claim goes wrong our own team takes it before the insurer or the TPA does. We work across technology and product companies, global capability centres, manufacturing and plants, education, healthcare and services. What we do not do is pick a side other than yours: under IRDAI regulation a broker’s duty is to the client, so being on your side is not a slogan, it is the licence we hold.

Find your chair

A 400-person software company and a 400-person auto components company have almost nothing in common as buyers except the headcount. Same for an HR head at 600 people and one at 12,000. The fear is different, the vocabulary is different, and the thing that goes wrong first is different. So pick the one that sounds like your week.

Founder or CEO · roughly 20 to 200 people

You built this to look after people, and now you argue with a TPA

Someone’s parent is in the ICU and the call comes to you. On a Sunday.

At this size there is no benefits function, so you are it. The first policy usually gets bought on price and a friendly quote, and nobody reads the exclusions until a real bill arrives. One badly handled hospitalisation is known to the whole company by Monday, and what breaks is your personal promise, not the premium.

What we do first: read the cover you already have against the ten moments that actually test it, then rebuild the parts that would not hold. After that, the calls come to us.

For founders and CEOs →
Stress-test your cover →
Group health insurance →
Group personal accident →

HR head or people lead · roughly 200 to 2,000

Squeezed from both directions, and holding the escalation desk alone

Upstairs wants to know why the premium jumped. Downstairs thinks you bought a cheap policy.

You are the integration layer between employees, the insurer, the TPA and a leadership team that sees one number a year. The work that eats your week is not designing benefits, it is chasing a pre-authorisation at nine at night and explaining a discharge deduction to a family that is already frightened.

What we do first: take the escalations off you, and give you the answer that satisfies both directions, with utilisation you can show rather than assume.

For HR and people teams →
Protect and Red Carpet →
Ethika Hub, one view for HR →
Premium calculator →

CHRO or rewards lead · 2,000 and above, multi-entity

At this size, benefits are a governance system, not a purchase

The problem you cannot see is variance. Averages hide the severe cases.

Several entities, several locations, and often several inherited policies that were never harmonised. Procurement, legal and the security review come before the benefit conversation does, and the failure that matters is systemic: an incident, a data question at board level, a tier that reads as unfair to one population.

What we do first: map what each entity actually holds, name the inconsistencies, and put employee health data under controls your security review can read.

For CHROs and rewards leads →
How the Hub handles data →
Ask for the security and data pack →

GCC or the India arm of a global group

You buy like a founder and report like an enterprise

The global template says one thing. India says another. You are in the middle.

The placement may be mandated by a head office and a global broker, while the part that gets judged locally is the everyday one: whether an employee’s cashless goes through, whether a parent is covered, whether anyone picks up. Talent moves fast in this market and benefits are one of the few levers you still control.

What we do first: leave the mandated placement exactly where it is and come in alongside as your claims and service partner. No disruption to the existing setup.

For GCCs and India teams →
Ethika alongside your broker →
Group health insurance →

Manufacturing, plants, sites and field teams

A benefit that lives only in an app stops at the office door

A serious accident on the floor is a human tragedy and a legal exposure in the same hour.

A dual workforce, shifts, contract labour, and statutory categories that overlap awkwardly. Cover has to line up across the interfaces rather than leave someone in the gap between two policies, and a benefit only counts if it reaches the shift that never opens email.

What we do first: line up the accident, compensation and health layers so nobody falls between them, then deliver on site rather than by notification.

For plants and field teams →
Workmen’s compensation →
Group personal accident →
Fire insurance for business →

CFO, legal or IT · the person holding the risk register

The covers nobody thinks about until a notice arrives

The claim that hurts most is usually the one nobody was asked to budget for.

Directors and officers, professional indemnity, cyber and data protection exposure, general liability, property, goods in transit. These sit outside the benefits conversation, get renewed on autopilot, and turn on wording that only gets read after the event.

For CFOs, legal and IT →
Directors & Officers →
Cyber insurance →
Professional indemnity →
Marine & transit →

Different chairs. The same thing missing, every time: someone who picks up, and stays.

Companies who work with us include BrowserStack, Gainsight, CyberArk, IIIT Hyderabad, Netcracker, aha, KMC and Scorpio Marine Management.

What changes as you grow

The cover looks similar at every size. The job does not. This is the single most useful thing to know before you brief any broker, including us, because a proposal written for the wrong row will feel oddly beside the point.

How the benefits job changes with company size
Your size	The job is	What goes wrong first	What you are really buying
Up to 500	Administration	A missed endorsement, so a new joiner is not on the policy when they need it	Relief
500 to 1,000	Justification	No data to answer leadership with	Credibility
1,000 to 5,000	Operations	A backlog of weekly escalations that all route through you	Accountability
5,000 to 10,000	Design	A tier that reads as unfair to one part of the workforce	A programme that fits the workforce
10,000 and above	Governance	Variance across entities, invisible until it is in the numbers	Consistency you can evidence

This table describes patterns we see across the client book, not a rule. Plenty of 300-person companies run a governance problem, and plenty of 8,000-person ones are still doing administration by spreadsheet.

Not sure which row you are in? The stress test is ten minutes, needs no sign-up, and shows your score on screen rather than emailing it to you.

Take the benefits stress test →

Two ways to work with us

Most companies we talk to already have someone. That is not an obstacle, and you do not have to fire anybody to get a claims team.

Ethika as your broker

We place your cover, negotiate with insurers, run the servicing and defend every claim. In this model we ask to be your only broker to the insurance market, because one broker dealing cleanly with insurers earns you better terms than several chasing the same account.

Ethika alongside your broker

Locked into a global broker by a head office mandate? Keep them for the placement. We come in as the claims and service partner, running the everyday benefits and the claim defence, with no disruption to the existing setup.

If your renewal is months away, that is usually the better time to start rather than the worse one. We begin the audit now and take over when the window opens, so nothing has to be rushed and no cover ever lapses in the handover.

Talk to us

We will tell you honestly which of the two fits your setup, even if the answer is neither.

The people we work for who never sign anything

Every chair above signs a contract. Neither of the two below ever will, and they are the reason the rest of it exists.

Your employee, and the family standing next to them

They did not choose the insurer, they usually cannot name the TPA, and they meet the policy for the first time on the worst day of their year. Most of what we are judged on happens here: whether a cashless approval reaches the hospital desk in time, whether someone explains a deduction in a language that is not policy wording, whether anyone answers on a Sunday.

They can also add cover for themselves through the same place: top-up health, personal accident, home, and pet cover for the dog or cat at home.

Pet insurance → · How employees use the Hub →

The person who has to sell the benefit internally

Often the plant HR officer, the site welfare officer, or whoever runs the time office. They are not the buyer. They are the distributor, and a benefit that never reaches them dies quietly on a notice board while the invoice keeps arriving.

That everyday half of the programme is Rise, which is delivered by Ethika Worklife Private Limited, a separate company in the group. It runs alongside the insurance rather than inside it.

Why your broker is talking about this →

Who we are probably not right for

Saying this out loud costs us a few conversations a month and saves everyone the wrong ones. If you are one of these, we would rather tell you now than at the second meeting.

If the only question is the lowest premium. We will always tell you what a cheaper structure gives up, and that conversation is irritating if you have already decided. Someone else will quote it faster.
If you want cover placed and nothing else. The servicing and the claim defence are the product. Buying only the placement means paying for a team you have decided not to use.
If you want a promise that every claim will be approved. Nobody can honestly offer that. We promise the fight, never the outcome, and that your people never face it alone.
If you have fewer lives than an insurer will write as a group. Below that threshold the honest answer is individual cover, and we will say so rather than force a structure that does not fit.

If one of those describes you today but not next year, come back next year. Nothing here expires.

What our clients say in public

Every broker will tell you they care. The check worth doing is what people write when we are not in the room, so the number we care about most is a public one, and the reviews behind it usually name the person who handled the claim.

★ 4.9

Google rating · 3,900+ reviews

750+

corporate clients

2,00,000+

lives covered

50,000+

claims supported · 15,000+ last year

90%

client retention

< 1 hour

typical cashless approval

Much of the review writing is people thanking an Ethika person by name.

Bootstrapped from day one and profitable from year one, which is the quiet reason the client is the only party we answer to. No insurer above us, no investor behind us.

Talk to us

20 minutes with a Growth Advisor. No obligation.

Common questions

Is there a minimum company size?

Group cover starts from a small number of lives, and the exact minimum is set by each insurer rather than by us, so it moves. Below that threshold the honest answer is individual cover rather than a group policy, and we will tell you that instead of forcing the structure.

We already have a broker. Is that a problem?

No. There are two ways in: Ethika as your broker to the insurance market, or Ethika alongside an existing broker as your claims and service partner. The second is common where a global head office mandates the placement. Both are described above.

Do you only work with technology companies?

No. The client book covers technology and product companies, global capability centres, manufacturing and plant-based employers, education, healthcare and services businesses. The pattern that matters is not the sector, it is which chair the crisis lands on.

Do you work outside Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai?

Yes. Those are where the offices are. Cover and claim support run for your employees wherever they are in India, and the claims team sits in Hyderabad rather than in a queue three time zones away.

Do you work with individuals, or only companies?

The main business is employers. Individual cover such as pet insurance, personal accident and top-up health is also placed, most often for the people inside companies we already work for. Talk to us and we will tell you whether it is worth it in your case.

What actually happens in the first conversation?

A 20-minute video call with a Growth Advisor. No obligation and no quote pushed. You leave with an honest read on your current cover and claims experience, and a straight answer on whether we can genuinely help, even if you never become a client.

If you recognised your own week up there

That recognition is usually the whole diagnosis. The chair you sit in tells us what to look at first, and twenty minutes is enough to find out whether your cover would hold on the day it gets tested.

What happens when you talk to us

A 20-minute video call with a Growth Advisor. It opens with a short video from our founder on how the benefits stack works and why Ethika exists. The rest is your questions. In that first call we usually look at:

Which chair you are in, and who currently takes the escalation
What your cover does on the moments that actually test it
Whether Ethika as your broker or alongside your broker is the better fit
What we would take off your desk in the first ninety days

You will leave with an honest read on your current cover, and a straight answer on whether we can genuinely help.

Talk to us

20 minutes with a Growth Advisor. No obligation.

Two quieter ways in

Not ready for a call? Stress-test your cover in ten minutes with no sign-up, or start with a workshop for founders and HR.

A note on this page. This page describes who Ethika works with and how we work. It is general information, not insurance, legal, financial or tax advice, and nothing on it is an offer of cover. What is right for your company is determined through a conversation and the formal placement process. Outcomes on any claim depend on the individual policy terms.

Sources. Company figures describe the Ethika client book and are stated as published. Segment patterns in “What changes as you grow” describe our own client book rather than published market research, and are worded as observation, not as data. No third-party or competitor research is cited on this page.

Ethika Insurance Broking Pvt Ltd · IRDAI-licensed Direct Insurance Broker (Life & General), Certificate No. 574, licence dated 8 August 2016, valid till 7 August 2028 · CIN U66030TG2015PTC099365 · Principal Officer: Sandeep Mukka · Member, Insurance Brokers Association of India (IBAI). Insurance is the subject matter of solicitation.
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