From Skepticism to Simplification: What Policybazaar co-founder Tarun Mathur said on demystifying insurance sector

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Edited Excerpts: So, most of it came from the model of ebookers, a travel aggregator company. MakeMyTrip and Yatra were already ruling the travel booking business. We wanted to create an aggregator platform but we didn't want to be the third best in the country, since there were already travel booking platforms in India.

Insurance seemed like a hard-to-understand product but mandatory for Indians to buy. In India, it is mandatory for people to buy motor insurance. It was easy to put everything online including the features, brands, services, and price.

It was easy to make a decision online and purchase. It was possible to do everything online. Whereas, brands that were selling physical products online struggled initially, including Amazon, Flipkart etc.

We chose insurance because it is the most digital product in the world. It is a promise delivered online. Also Read | Paytm's loss is BharatPe, PhonePe, MobiKwik and other fintechs' gain; 42% Kirana stores switch to alternatives Policybazaar was founded in June 2008.

When we set up the company the market had just crashed, everything was looking downward, funding had dried up too. We were becoming pessimistic towards raising funding for Policbazaar. However, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder and executive vice chairman of Info Edge came forward and said that it was the right time to invest in the insurance business.

Additionally, while the Internet was quite prominent, however buying on the Internet was not. But people have started buying travel tickets online. People were ready to risk their money online hoping that it would work.