Policybazaar is constructing a digital-first platform to make insurance coverage less complicated, extra clear, and accessible to everybody, tackling the trade’s conventional opacity and misselling challenges.
Policybazaar was created as a digital-first platform to make insurance coverage less complicated and extra accessible. By leveraging expertise, the corporate aimed to strip away the inefficiencies and opacity of the historically offline trade, enabling fairer underwriting and wider distribution. This digital transformation has had a big affect, with over 80 per cent of city customers now researching insurance policies on-line, driving large progress in monetary inclusion, notably in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Supported by regulatory initiatives from the IRDAI, Policybazaar has performed a key function in shifting the market in direction of knowledgeable client alternative and making monetary safety accessible to households throughout India with just some clicks.
This week, we communicate to Yashish Dahiya, Chairman & Group CEO of PB Fintech, about his journey from a private mission to appropriate misselling within the insurance coverage trade to main considered one of India’s most vital fintech gamers. A former CEO and completed triathlete, Dahiya was motivated by his family’s unfavourable experiences with opaque monetary merchandise, a realisation that sparked the creation of Policybazaar.
What motivated you to start out Policybazaar, and what had been the most important hurdles you confronted?
The motivation to start out Policybazaar got here from a deeply private area. I had seen firsthand how my father and several other retired officers invested their hard-earned financial savings in merchandise that didn’t ship the promised returns, although they appeared clear on paper. That have uncovered a severe lack of transparency and reliability within the insurance coverage area. Whereas the expertise was private, I understood that the issue was all too prevalent. It was clear to me that individuals deserved a service that provided readability, transparency, and most significantly, belief.
Once we began, insurance coverage was primarily an offline enterprise, and the concept of a digital-first platform was fully new. We noticed a chance to make insurance coverage less complicated, extra clear, and accessible to everybody. Shopping for insurance coverage on-line was virtually unparalleled at the moment. Misselling and misinformation was additionally a problem that we needed to overcome. These early years had been powerful however they laid the muse for Policybazaar to turn into a reputable and trusted platform.
Why does the insurance coverage sector, maybe greater than others, require pressing digital transformation?
Insurance coverage, at its core, isn’t a bodily product. It’s a promise of safety that should come by way of sooner or later. That’s the reason I’ve all the time believed this trade requires digital transformation urgently. For too lengthy, insurance coverage in India was bought by way of layers of opacity and excessive entry boundaries.
Know-how has helped strip away these inefficiencies. It allows underwriting and distribution to be fairer, wider and way more environment friendly. Extra importantly, it ensures that entry to safety isn’t restricted by geography, privilege, or lack of understanding, however accessible to each family with just some clicks.
What affect have you ever seen from digitisation on transparency, accessibility, and client belief?
The true affect of this shift is greatest seen in how Indian households are partaking with insurance coverage at this time. With over 80 per cent of city customers now researching insurance policies on-line, folks can immediately evaluate merchandise, options and exclusions. Because of India’s 900 million+ web customers, this accessibility has pushed large progress in monetary inclusion, with Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities main the change. With rising digital adoption of insurance coverage, it’s clear that customers have an affinity in direction of knowledgeable decisions, which might solely occur by way of digitisation.
The IRDAI (Insurance coverage Regulatory and Growth Authority of India) has performed a pivotal function on this transformation by implementing initiatives that promote digital adoption and streamline processes. This has helped make insurance coverage extra accessible, particularly in underserved areas, by overcoming conventional boundaries and reaching a broader viewers.
How is the intersection of insurance coverage and fintech evolving, and the way can partnerships speed up progress in under-served markets?
The intersection of insurance coverage and fintech is opening outstanding alternatives, however I consider safety is a devoted want in itself, not simply an add-on. Embedded finance is definitely serving to make entry extra seamless, guaranteeing that insurance coverage could be provided on the proper moments in a client’s monetary journey. Nevertheless, true safety requires greater than comfort; it calls for considerate planning, transparency and belief. Insurance coverage is about offering lifelong safety, and that can not be diminished to a facet function.
That is the place fintechs come into the image. They’ve the facility to remodel insurance coverage from a product folks purchase to a service they genuinely expertise. Cellular-first platforms, digital funds and eKYC have already lowered boundaries to entry, whereas superior analytics and data-sharing frameworks make it simpler to design options which might be truthful, inexpensive and related to every client.
In markets which have lengthy been underserved, these partnerships are bridging structural gaps. Information and digital instruments permit insurance coverage corporations to succeed in individuals who had been invisible to the formal monetary system. For instance, AI and various information can assist assess threat even when somebody has no prior historical past. While you mix that with the attain of fintech platforms and supportive authorities insurance policies, you begin to see insurance coverage shift from being a privilege of the few to a proper for each family.
How are new applied sciences like AI altering the insurance coverage panorama?
AI is already reworking the best way insurance coverage is priced, distributed, and serviced. Within the brief time period, the most important positive factors are in effectivity and equity. Claims that after took weeks can now be processed in hours as a result of AI can analyse 1000’s of knowledge factors immediately. Fraud detection has additionally turn into far more practical, with AI flagging anomalies at a scale and velocity conventional methods merely couldn’t.
Over time, AI will assist design hyper-personalised merchandise which might be dynamically priced to mirror a person’s actual threat profile. In distribution, AI helps match clients to the precise insurance policies extra shortly, enhancing outreach , whereas additionally serving to cut back friction and guide dependency by way of digital channels. In servicing, AI allows sooner and extra accessible buyer assist through chatbots or sentiment evaluation, all whereas preserving people within the loop for oversight and high quality.
What excites you most concerning the insurance coverage alternative within the Center East?
What excites me most concerning the insurance coverage alternative within the Center East is the potential to form the subsequent stage of progress in a area that’s dynamic and nonetheless evolving. Per-capita insurance coverage spends listed here are considerably larger than in India, highlighting each the urge for food and readiness for defense.
Saudi Arabia, for example, with its youthful demographic, represents a demographic dividend. In reality, I believe North Africa, Southeast Asia and the Center East are the fertile grounds for the subsequent stage of progress. It’s vital to keep in mind that customers all over the place need the identical issues—comfort, readability and a easy expertise—and expertise makes it potential to ship that constantly.
Historic ties with India additionally present a basis of belief and familiarity for brand new options within the Center East. Mixed with supportive insurance policies and a collaborative ecosystem, these elements make the Center East a outstanding alternative to introduce progressive, tech-enabled insurance coverage options.
How can regulators and trade leaders within the area stability innovation with client safety?
Innovation and client safety will not be opposing forces; they’re the dual engines of sustainable progress. The UAE’s work on open finance regulation is a powerful step on this route. By bringing regulators and the trade collectively to co-create the principles, the framework is designed to encourage innovation whereas safeguarding buyer pursuits.
Open finance allows customers to share their monetary information securely, which in flip permits corporations to design extra personalised, clear and inexpensive merchandise. On the similar time, regulatory pointers be sure that information privateness, consent and accountability stay non-negotiable. As trade stakeholders, the onus is on us to guide with a customer-first strategy. We should leverage expertise not only for effectivity, however for simplicity and transparency. This implies designing merchandise which might be easy, truthful and moral from the bottom up.
