* Over $100 billion in sum insured for consumers as they buy higher coverage health policies to ensure adequate protection
India’s largest online insurance distributer - Policybazaar.com has achieved a significant milestone by insuring 10 lakh lives between April-Dec 2020. Over these nine months, Policybazaar sold 4 lakh health insurance policies amounting to a total sum insured of over Rs. 7 Lakh cr. This is driven by 1) Steep jump in demand for Health Insurance in the aftermath of the Coronavirus pandemic, 2) introduction of new innovative higher sum insured products, 3) Flexible payment options and 4) simpler processes which makes buying Health Insurance a lot simpler and cheaper.
Health Insurance has seen a massive jump in demand in the last 10 months. Covid-19 has made the common man realise that a large medical expense is always round the corner, and hence having adequate health insurance is a must. As a result, customers have now started to proactively look for the best Health Insurance products. During the months of April – December, Policybazaar saw over 1 Crore visitors; of which 65% were less than the age of 40 years, 25% were between the age group of 40 - 60 years and 10% were above the age of 60 years.
Health Insurance products have evolved a lot in the last couple of years. High Sum Insured coverage has become critical, and now there are multiple products in the 1 Crore Sum Insured segment. ~40% of customers are now buying such products on Policybazaar. These products stand for the core belief “More for Less” and customers see a lot of value in these offerings because of their affordable prices. For example, a 30 year old individual can now get a 1 Cr Sum Insured Health Insurance plan, for less than Rs 500 / month.
The ability for customers to pay for their Health insurance in a flexible manner has also contributed to this growth. Data reveals 20% customers preferred paying for multi-year policies in one go, which helps them get a discount. The pandemic has also negated the myth that people with pre-existing ailments cannot buy a health insurance policy. We observed that of all the health insurance policies sold by Policybazaar, the share of policies bought by those with pre-existing conditions was 30%, with most common illnesses being Diabetes - 40% and Hypertension - 25%.
“This milestone is a clear reflection of the immense trust and faith that people have in the Policybazaar brand. We always put the needs and requirements of a customer ahead of everything else. This helps us build healthy lifelong relationships with our consumers, which start from selling a policy, but last a lifetime as we help them with service requests, renewals and most importantly in getting their claims approved speedily. I must thank the regulator, IRDAI for taking very timely actions this year, in ensuring that Covid is covered by all policies, digitization of processes, and introduction of standard policies. These actions have helped increase transparency and trust in Health insurance, which will go a long way in increasing demand further,” says Sarbvir Singh, CEO, Policybazaar.com.
Over the last few months, with changes in underwriting guidelines and digitisation of various processes in the insurance sector, buying a health cover has now become much easier and faster. 65% of the total policies sold in this time frame were sold through ‘Straight Through Process’ – based on customer declaration and were issued instantly. The remaining 34% were sold through Tele-medical and only 1% needed a Physical Medical check-up, which earlier stood at 15% prior to changes in underwriting guidelines. Hence, for customers buying a policy has become a lot simpler and seamless.
About Policybazaar.com
Policybzaar.com is India's largest insurance marketplace and a leading insurtech brand globally. It is the flagship brand of Policybazaar.com Group of companies, that owns fintech brand, Paisabazaar.com, b2b venture, ZPhin.com, and lending & insurance marketplace in the UAE region, Policybazaar.ae
The Policybazaar.com Group has backing from a host of investors including the likes of Soft Bank, InfoEdge (Naukri.com), Temasek, Tiger Global Management, True North, Premji Invest, besides investments from other PE funds and family offices. Policybazaar.com started with a purpose to educate people on insurance products and has had a significant influence on how insurance is bought in India. It has helped in driving penetration of pure life insurance, health insurance, and such products which were barely bought earlier.
From receiving traffic of 180,000 visitors in 2008, Policybazaar.com has come a long way and today hosts over 120 million visitors yearly and records sales of nearly 10 lac transactions a month. Currently, Policybazaar.com accounts for nearly 25% of India’s life cover, and over 10% of India’s retail health business. It accounts for roughly half of all internet-based insurance purchases in the country and is more than doubling annually.
The company has received several accolades in India and globally. The most noteworthy being recognized as India’s top and world’s leading “FinTech Innovator” by the Global consultancy firm, KPMG and venture capital fund, H2 Ventures for 2015, 2016, 2018 & 2019. It has won a range of awards in the last couple of years, many of them consecutively. These include The Financial Express “Best Fintech Marketplace”, Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) Digital India Award for “Best Financial Website” & “Most Innovating Insurance Service”, IDC Iconic Award for “Tech Implementation leading to Operational Excellence”, Asia Insurance Review Award for "Insurtech of the Year", to name a few.
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