PB Fintech Ltd (POLICYBZR) Q2FY27 Concall Transcript - Sep-2026 Qtr
Mohit (PB Fintech Ltd): Good evening, everyone, and a very warm welcome to PB Fintech Limited earnings conference call quarter two FY '27. Thank you for joining us today. On the call today, we have Mr. Yashish Dahiya, Chairman and Group CEO; Mr. Alok Bansal, Executive Vice Chairman; Mr. Sarbvir Singh, Joint Group CEO; Miss Santosh Agarwal, CEO Paisabazaar; Mr. Dhruv Sarin, CEO PB Partners; Mr. Mandeep Mehta, Group CFO, and myself, Mohit, Head Investor Relations, PB Fintech. We will begin with opening remarks from the management followed by Q&A session. I now invite Yashish to share his opening remarks. Over to you, Yashish.
Yashish Dahiya (PB Fintech Ltd): Thank you, Mohit. Good afternoon, good evening, good morning to everyone wherever you are joining from, and thank you for joining us. We've had another strong quarter with healthy growth across insurance and credit. The total insurance premium for the quarter was 9,385 crores, up 38% year-on-year, setting us up well for over 40,000 crores this year. As always, growth was led by protection because that's our focus from day one and continues to be our focus. Core online new health and term grew 42%, and within this, new health grew 46% year-on-year. Consolidated operating revenue grew 35% to 2,178 crores. Core insurance revenue was up 42%, and core credit revenue up 19%. PAT grew 43% to 192 crores, and PAT margin improved from 8% to 9%. The quality of this growth shows in its consistency. Core new premium excluding savings has now grown at above 34% for 14 consecutive quarters, and our core renewal and trail revenue is now over 1,000 crores. It's almost 1,100 crores on a rolling 12-month basis, up 42% year-on-year. In credit, disbursements grew 22% in the core business, and this is now risen for five consecutive quarters. Our insurance-led new initiatives, PB Partners, UAE business, and PB for Business, delivered 826 crore of revenue, up 40%, and are now close to breakeven. UAE premium grew 36%. Let me now address the question straight up, which I am assuming is on everybody's mind. First of all, where do we stand on the IRDAI's consultation
Yashish Dahiya (PB Fintech Ltd): consultation paper. The IRDAI's consultation paper aims for lower misselling, better claims experience, lower prices, and deeper penetration. We absolutely support all of these goals fully. These are the goals Policybazaar was built on. Our first campaign back in 2009 was Ullu mat bano, aimed at addressing misselling. We have engaged constructively with the regulator and we will implement the final framework fully and in its spirit. Second, the impact: lower distribution payouts will reduce our insurance distribution revenue for sure. We are working on three fronts. We will expand our non-insurance revenue within and as the regulator permits. And there is some anticipation that that could happen, in the discussion paper it does mention that. We will accelerate our ecosystem offerings, and as any long-term business should, we are evaluating other options to strengthen our business over time. We will share much more on this as and when the time is appropriate. Now, why do we remain confident? Health and term insurance stay deeply underpenetrated. And for the consumer, it's not really about buying a policy. The customer gets nothing on the day he buys it. The real test comes at claims. And I would like to just cover our record on the four points that the regulator themselves layout. On claims, in the health insurance industry, the industry data says 87% of health claims are settled. That same number for Policybazaar customers is 97%. Last year, 11,156 rejected claims worth Rs 185 crores were reopened after initial rejection and paid. In the first half of this year alone, we supported about 1.25 lakh health claims and 80,000 motor claims. Our customer satisfaction is consistently above 90%. On persistency, 71% of our life policies are still in force at month 61. This is against a benchmark of 51 to 66% for the large players. Our renewal, in health insurance they're 89%, rising to 91% from second year renewals onwards. On misselling, we have 16, in the life insurance category we have we get 16 complaints from our customers per 10,000 customers. This is against a benchmark of 30 to 53. In health insurance, we get 21 claims complaints for every 10,000 claims. This is against a benchmark of 29 to 54. On price reduction, for the plans they choose, our health customers pay on average 9% less, and up to 30% less than some other channels. And on reach and expansion of the market, about 40% of new customers added in retail health across the country come through us. More than a quarter of India's pure term premium, 17.8% of the retail health premium, came through us last year. 74% of our term policies and 64% of our health policies come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. These outcomes are very much required in the country and that is why we are, as a management team, super confident that we've solved this particular problem. We're a part of the solution and we will only grow stronger through this. Our credit business and our UAE business are growing and outside this broad framework. And we will maintain strict cost discipline over the years as we go through this period. What will we not do while maintaining this cost discipline and profitability focus?
Yashish Dahiya (PB Fintech Ltd): we will not cut back on the customer proposition. Not one step back on that. Choice, transparency, and claim support remain non-negotiable. We will remain fully compliant and and consult with the regulator on whatever we do in this area. Finally, since our listing, quarterly revenue has grown from 280 crores to 2,178 crores, a 51% CAGR, and the PAT margin has moved from minus 73% to 9%. That came from building around what customers need. We have a very clear, let's call it, mission, or strategy, whatever you want to call it. Over the next 1,000 days, we will serve customers well. It's a very simple strategy. Over the next 1,000 days, we will serve customers well, we will stay focused on that, and we will stay disciplined on cost. And we will keep investing in a market that remains deeply under penetrated. Thank you. Look forward to your questions.
Mohit (PB Fintech Ltd): Thank you, Yashish. We will now move to the Q&A session. We will take the first question from the line of Sachin Salgaonkar from BofA. Sachin, please unmute your mike.
Sachin Salgaonkar (BofA): Hi, Mohit. Thank you. Good day, management. I have three questions. First question, want to understand anything specific happened in the quarter, which led to an increase in selling and marketing expenses and other expenses, you know, both in terms of Q-o-Q as well as Y-o-Y?
Yashish Dahiya (PB Fintech Ltd): Sarbvir, you want to take that question, Sarbvir?
Sarbvir Singh (PB Fintech Ltd): Yeah. Sachin, I think what has happened is two things have happened. Last year, you know, because of the GST impact and everything and I think it was kind of pre-GST also this quarter, but somehow last year from June to obviously till December, the demand was very robust. And which meant that we could we spent, I would say, lower than our normal level of spending in marketing. This year, it's been the reverse actually, marketing has been, you know, demand has been very tough. And I think we have to spend a lot more money. So, I would say that if you look at it on a 2-year basis, you'll find it's not that dramatic, but, yeah, versus last year, it will look as if it was higher. And it was just lack of demand in the market, and I think we we had to spend money to make sure that we, you know, got the leads.
Sachin Salgaonkar (BofA): Got it. And you know, just a follow-up on this, you know, how should we think about the incremental spending in next let's say, 3 to 6 months? And I'm asking from a point of view that there is this entire overhang associated with in terms of, you know, how this commission structure gets implemented, is there a school of thought that it would make sense to control costs, particularly the discretionary item, show contribution margin improvement? In the opening remark, Yashish did mention about being disciplined from a cost point of view. And how do you look to sort of, you know, balance it in context of what you indicated that from a demand point of view, things are a bit tough in the near term?
Yashish Dahiya (PB Fintech Ltd): No. Thanks, Sachin. I think, look, philosophically, earlier, we were only focused on growth. And when we say that, P0, P1, P2, P3, everything was growth, and we could have been a little aggressive on cost because that was not the highest priority. Now that does not imply we were wasteful. As we move forward, the cost consciousness will be there, but that does not mean we are backing off from growth. I think growth stays very critical in this market, two things: first of all, the market needs it, and I think it's in a way our scale is very important. And thus, we are going to keep the focus on growth. However, yes, we will be more conscious about the balance between growth and cost than we were in the past.
Sachin Salgaonkar (BofA): Got it. And my last question--
Sarbvir Singh (PB Fintech Ltd): Sachin, I think Yashish said it right, Sachin, I think we will be more conscious of the balance. But having said that, you know, the truth of the matter is that the biggest challenge in insurance is demand. See, everything else is actually manageable. The only thing that you can't manage is demand. So, I think you know, we will have to spend money to keep the awareness, to continue with the, you know, focus on building the categories,
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