As they say life is unpredictable and you never know what is coming next, it is better to be prepared for the unforeseen obstacles, just like insurance policy that protects you from the unexpected losses/damages. However, the agents who sell insurance schemes often fail to provide options that cover customers completely. They knowingly or unknowingly hide important information related to the policy from gullible individuals, which later causes trouble to the customers. Apparently, the launch of Policy Bazaar has changed all of that as it offers a secure platform to Indians to compare all the policies on the basis of their budget and other requirements and then only buy it. Isn’t it amazing?
Thanks to Policy Bazaar as it brings a much-needed transparency in the ecosystem of Indian insurance industry, making it safe for users. Yashish Dahiya founded Policy Bazaar in 2008 with a sole purpose of building a safety net for households in India.
On that note, let’s discuss about the journey of Policy Bazaar and how Yashish Dahiya got the idea of launching it.
How did it begin?
The idea of launching Policy Bazaar came to Yashish Dahiya’s mind when he went through a bizarre incident in his family. Yashish was once checking his father’s financials and he found a few things dubious. On deeper inspection, he came to know his father was duped by insurance agents for a heavy amount. The transactions looked clean on the face of it but the reality emerged when he looked closely into the matter. That’s when he realized that there are countless people in India who are cheated by such agents and hence the idea of Policy Bazar came into picture.
Later, Yashish and his partner Alok Bansal got together and started working on building a user-friendly platform that will help the customers to make an informed decisions while buying insurance policies. Eventually the company was launched in 2008.
Hiccups in the journey
When Policy Bazaar was launched, at that time, the insurance in India lacked transparency and the policies were generally sold by the agents. Therefore, earning the trust of people and convincing them to use a digital platform to buy the policies were the two biggest challenges for the owners of Policy Bazaar.
However, the online platform eventually turned the tables in its favour by listing the details of multiple insurance policies for customers to choose from. The website which was initially started with an aim of providing Indian insurance buyers a trustworthy platform to compare and buy a policy plan, subsequently became a marketplace for insurance policy.
Success of Policy Bazaar
Success didn’t come overnight to Policy Bazaar owners as it took a long time for them to earn a loyal customer base. But today the company has become the largest online aggregator of policies in India, boasting 20 million new visitors annually. Policy Bazaar sells over 17,000 policies every month.
After raising $200 Million from SoftBank and Info Edge in May 2018, the valuation of Policy Bazaar crossed $1 billion mark, making it only the second Fintech Company in India to enter the unicorn club after Paytm.