Online insurance aggregator Policybazaar.com has set a target to sell 11 lakh policies during the current financial year due to the increased awareness about the online medium and change in consumer behaviour, a top official said.
"For 2018-19, we expect entire market (size) looks to be 2.2 crore cars getting insured. Because there will be 25-30 lakh brand new cars that will come into the market. About five lakh cars which are older than 15-20 years will move out of market", he told PTI in an interaction.
Elaborating, he said, "of the 2.2 crore vehicles that are expected to be insured, roughly about 18 lakh insurance policies will be done online and we (policybazaar.com) will be expecting (to offer insurance for) about 11 lakh of them."
To a query, he said, the company was witnessing a change in consumer behaviour particularly in terms of the ability to compare insurance policies offered by various companies in one place through policybazaar.com.
"You can compare policies offered by various companies on policy bazaar.com... That awareness was lacking (earlier) but is now slowly building up. Secondly, penetration (of online insurance products) is growing across the country.", he said.
The company has tied up with 18 insurance companies to offer its service and recently launched self-video cashless claims features on the mobile application for easier and faster claims processing, he said.
Public sector insurance companies--New India Assurance and United India Insurance have been the first companies to adopt the new feature with Policybazaar.com, he said.
The new feature allows consumers to overcome the hassle of physical inspection for claims and allows them to self-upload a video through the application for evaluation of damages on a vehicle, making entire inspection process in minutes while approval in hours.
Chowdary said the company under its expansion plans forayed into the United Arab Emirates market marking its maiden foray in the international market.
"This is the first international expansion for us. We have started off there. We are working with a few motor insurance companies...," he said.
To a query, he said the company was looking at launching health and life insurance apart from offering motor insurance in the UAE market "very soon".
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)