Online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar, operated by PB Fintech Ltd, reported a wider net loss of Rs 204.3 crore for the June quarter compared to Rs 110.8 crore year-on-year, while revenue more than doubled to Rs 505.2 crore versus Rs 237.7 crore in Q1FY22.
The recently listed new age entity saw a growth in both insurance premium and credit disbursals for the quarter-ended June. Credit disbursals for the quarter rose 136% to Rs 2,320 crore while insurance premiums are up 52% to Rs 2,430 crore versus Rs 1,594 crore y-o-y.
Segmentally, the company’s insurance aggregation and broking services revenue grew 49.8% to Rs 230.7 crore for Q1FY23 compared to Rs 154 crore during the same period last year.
For its India business, PolicyBazaar’s new premium per inquiry for Q1 came in at Rs 1,595, up 32% from Rs 1,209 y-o-y.
Shares of PB Fintech ended Wednesday’s session with minor gains of 0.6% at Rs 560.50 apiece on BSE.
“We are at an annual run rate of insurance premium of over Rs 9,700 crore growing at 52% y-o-y. Our efforts towards customer service and claims are paying off, reflected by a customer satisfaction score of 83%. The quality of business in terms of claims ratios and retention rates makes our business profitable for our partners. Our portfolio has a higher claims settlement ratio as compared to other channels,” the company said in a statement.
The company’s core business adjusted EBITDA came in at Rs 4 crore after absorbing a Rs 13 crore loss by the non-insurance business.
The physical leg of the business is delivering meaningful impact on health and life insurance verticals, the statement further said.
Claiming to have a customer base of 61.2 million with a market share of over 93% in the online insurance aggregation business, PolicyBazaar says it now has 40 insurance centres in 32 cities.
“We are now at the run rate of Rs 11,200 crore disbursal and 4.3 lakh credit card issuance on an annualized basis. Over 29.5 million customers have accessed credit scores on our PaisaBazaar so far. This represents approximately 13% of India’s active credit card customers. Our contribution margin in the credit business has improved over the last two years,” the company added.
The insurance aggregator was in the news recently after it informed stock exchanges of a breach in its IT system and that subsequent corrective action was taken.
In a regulatory filing, Policybazaar said, "We wish to bring to your notice that on 19 July 2022, certain vulnerabilities were identified in a part of Policybazaar Insurance Brokers Private Limited’s IT systems and the same were subject to illegal and unauthorized access. In this regard, Policybazaar has reached out to the appropriate authorities and is taking due recourse as per law. The identified vulnerabilities have been fixed and a thorough audit of the systems has been initiated. The matter is currently being reviewed by the information security team along with external advisors. While we are in the process of undertaking a detailed review, as on date, our review has found that no significant customer data was exposed."
PB Fintech-owned PolicyBazaar listed at a premium of 17.4% to its issue price on 15 November, 2021, on BSE. However, after touching a high of Rs 1,470 apiece, the stock has taken a beating like other new age companies since late last year.
