Introduction
Policybazaar is an Indian insurance aggregator and multinational financial technology company. Policybazaar is the flagship subsidiary of PB Fintech Ltd. Policybazaar moved from a policy price comparison website to an insurance selling operation. The company claims to process nearly 25% of India’s life insurance and over 7% of the country’s retail health cover. The Business model of Policy Bazaar involves its business plan, revenue model, its competitors, SWOT Analysis and many more.
Policybazaar is a one-stop online destination for all types of insurance products. It holds experience and expertise in insurance to help customers choose the best insurance policies.
PolicyBazaar has tied up with various insurance brokers which help them in procuring details about the insurance policies directly from insurer. The company offers over 250 insurance plans and around 50 insurance brands on its platform. The platform is designed so that visitors can easily compare insurance plans and can buy plans based on their personal insurance needs. PolicyBazaar doesn’t charge anything for the service.
Business Plan
The founders of the startup wanted to reimagine insurance, so they started by simplifying all the information around plans, ending the rampant mis-selling, and preventing policy lapses. PolicyBazaar also adopted Amazon Polly and developed in-house AI chatbot named PBee to improve customer satisfaction.
PolicyBazaar has the unique value proposition of simplifying the buying process of insurance policies and provide comparison of various schemes available in the market. It analyses the various products on the basis of price, quality and key benefits. Being a policy web aggregator, Policybazaar empowers its customer with the accurate information which indeed helps them to make a buying decision.
The company works like they tied up with insurance brokers which help them gain information such as price, benefit, insurance cover etc directly from the insurers for the customer to compare.
Revenue Model
PolicyBazaar makes money by generating leads for insurers, advertising, and policy sales.
PolicyBazaar makes money by earning a commission from the Insurers from the sale of Insurance policies made through the PolicyBazaar Portal. The revenue model of the PolicyBazaar Website is based on earning a commission from the Insurers based on Insurance policies sold through the PolicyBazaar portal (Commission Model).
PolicyBazaar offers users an intuitive platform which allows them to compare insurance policies offered by different insurers online and buy the policy (directly from the platform) best suited to their needs. And, on each sale of an insurance policy made through the portal, PolicyBazaar earns a commission from the concerned insurer.
Competitors
The major market share of the digital insurance is still with Policy bazaar, but as usual other players also wants to have some share of the market. Here is the list of some of the competitors of Policy bazaar:
- BankBazaar
- CoverFox
- EasyPolicy
- PolicyAdvisor
- Acko
- InsurancePandit
- PolicyLitmus
- Bimadirect
- RenewBuy
- Turtlemint
- PolicyTiger
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
- True Innovation: Policy bazaar has been capable of doing this for quite a decade now. Technology must help identify and meet several specific insurance needs, and not just for the internet business. This would ensure that insurers design websites that are easy to use and ensure that transactions go smoothly.
- Various Services: A customer portal in PolicyBazaar offer various services to customers who can save time and even buy policies online. Customers can now calculate premium, bonus amount, tax calculation, check the status of their policy, calculate loan amount, download form and pay premium online.
- Brand Reputation: The company has built a strong brand reputation that offers a wide variety, transparency, and convenience to its customers.
- Financial Position: PolicyBazaar high renewal rates provide a clear view of future business and offer excellent profitability. It uses a capital-efficient model with low operating costs.
Weaknesses
- Tax saving: They fail to see the bigger picture that insurance means much more than just tax saving.
- Customer inertia: People still have the habit of buying insurance from agents. It takes effort to convince this category of people to buy insurance online.
Opportunities
- Social Media: Huge organisations are leveraging such tools to stay relevant and are seeking specialists for the same.
- Technological Advancement: Technology provides numerous benefits in a variety of fields. Costs can be saved by automating operations. Technology allows for the better data collection on customers and improves marketing efforts.
- Lower Cost: Policybazaar shifted to digital distribution as the market changed and competition increased. These changes have resulted in a significant decrease in the average cost of distribution services.
Threats
- Competition: Competition in the industry has increased, which is putting pressure on prices. If the policy market does not adapt to price changes, it may lose market share.
- Government Regulation: Government regulations on topics like health care, mould, and terrorism can quickly change the direction of insurance. Rising expenses and shrinking profit margins will hit smaller agencies and insurance companies hard.
- New Comers: Several new players have entered the market and are gaining market share by taking market share from existing companies. PolicyBazaar is at risk because these new entrants could steal its customers.
Conclusion
PolicyBazaar has a very unique business model and it is the first insurance policy web aggregator in India. It started as an insurance policy comparing website then expanded itself and started selling policies online which contains travel insurance policy, life insurance policy, group insurance policy, etc.
