Very good morning, everyone, and welcome to PB Fintech Limited's earnings call for Q2, financial year 2024-25. Today, we have with us Yashish Dahiya, Chairman and CEO of PB Fintech, Alok Bansal, Executive Vice Chairman of PB Fintech, Sarbvir Singh, Joint CEO of PB Fintech, Naveen Kukreja, Co-founder and CEO of Paisabazaar, Mandeep Mehta, Group CFO of PB Fintech, and I'm Rasleen. I would now like to request Yashish to start with the address.
Thanks, Rasleen. So, thank you all for joining early morning for India. We are extremely pleased that the health and life insurance business, which, as I have repeatedly said, is a bulk of our long-term value, is continuing to witness phenomenal growth, 69% year- on- year in new premium for the quarter. And the total insurance premium for the quarter is now at INR 5,450 crores, so at an ARR of almost INR 22,000 crores. And of course, we are just in the second quarter. We are still out of season. The new core insurance premium grew at 61%. Core insurance premium grew 49%, which includes renewals in Q2, with core insurance revenue growing at 41%.
We've mentioned that this is now kind of going to be a point where revenue growth and premium growth will start coming in line after this, ` because this is the phase when we shifted from a lot more towards the unit-linked products compared to the capital guarantee products. And that is the big difference that you have been seeing over time. So far, the core insurance revenue growth is at 41%. Credit-linked revenue is at INR 143 crores for Q2. New initiatives grew 87% and are at a contribution level, not making any losses now. Our revenue for Q2 grew 44% year- on- year to INR 1,167 crores, and the PAT improved by INR 72 crores- INR 51 crores. We have had slightly higher operating expenses. We understand that. I would say for this quarter, it was up by about maybe $4-$5 million.
And in the second half of the year, you will see that correction coming in. It's not a correction. Basically, we over-invested in Policybazaar in the first half of the year in anticipation of continued growth. Thankfully, we are continuing to see that growth. And the benefit of that, we will see in the second half. On the Paisabazaar side, we perhaps did not anticipate this slowdown to last so long. Now, we do believe it is lasting a little longer. And so we will take some corrective action there. On renewal trail revenues, those of you who've been following, I mentioned last quarter that this quarter will grow at about 45%. So yes, we've grown at 45%. INR 633 crores ARR, up from INR 436 crores the same quarter last year. But there's no surprise here. So this could only be between 44% to 46%.
It couldn't have changed too much. But you will also see these sort of starting to inch up now. This obviously operated at a pretty high margin of 85% and is a significant growth of the future profit growth. The most interesting thing is we finally hit 90% on CSAT. If you remember, at IPO, we were at about 87%. This is a very hard number to inch up. We are finally at 90%, so very happy about that. Credit business has been flat. I think the good news there is quarter on quarter, it is about 9% up. However, year- on- year, it's 8% down. So yes, it's turning some corner, but there is still a lot of stress in that business. And we will be taking some corrective action on the operating cost front because we do believe that we had anticipated slightly higher growth than this.
We continue to strengthen our leadership in new initiatives with the revenue growth of 87% year- on- year. The adjusted EBITDA margin has changed by 14% from minus 26% to minus 12%. PB Partners is doing really well. Very happy with the performance. 250,000 advisors, 18,700 PIN codes, 98% of PIN codes in India. The quality of business, which from outside is very difficult to assess, is clearly moving very well and in the direction that we anticipate. The UAE business insurance premium has grown at 63% year- on- year. That business also continues to do very well. Our core health and life insurance business are growing ahead of expectation. Please, I just wanted to say this. Don't get used to the 60%-70% kind of growth. It's good. It's been happening. So far, it does not seem like it's changing. But listen, this is unreal growth.
Our long-term guidance, our midterm guidance continues to be 30%-ish. This is good. We are enjoying it. We are also surprised by it. But that's what it is. In anticipation of the steady growth, we did, as I mentioned, invest a bit earlier. The other thing I wanted to mention was our cash balance has gone up by about INR 200 crores in the quarter, which is quite good. It is now more than INR 5,400 crores. But this will keep happening. As we mentioned, I think next year it will go up a lot more. So it's just par for the course. Open to questions now, please.
Please raise your hand for asking questions. We'll wait a minute for the lineup. We'll take the first question from Shreya Shivani. Shreya, please unmute yourself.
Yeah, hi. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity. So I have two questions. Yeah, I have two questions. First is on the Paisabazaar side. What corrective actions do you plan to take? What is the outlook on credit disbursals that you're seeing over the next two quarters? And what has been the change in the mix of secured, unsecured loans over here? Some color on that would be useful. And second is on the core insurance business. I wanted to understand that while the growth is very strong and it's very commendable, has there been any change in terms of the way the segments were moving? So maybe ULIP has slowed down a little bit, not as fast as the last two quarters, or any such color? Just trying to understand because the overall contribution margins came in at 41%.
I understand some bit of it got impacted due to credit business. But how much impact on that decline in contribution margins has come from the insurance business? And at what rate should the recovery be for the next two quarters? So do we expect that to come up to 42%, 43%, or 44%-45% by the last quarter of this year? Thank you.
Sure. No, thank you for those questions. On Paisabazaar, I would just like Naveen to briefly give some color on that.
Thanks. So like Yashish mentioned in the opening comments, in the unsecured side, which is both personal loan, business loan, and credit cards, we are seeing slowdown lasting a little longer. And if you've seen or observed the bank results over the last two weeks or so, you see that reflecting in almost the entire industry, driven by, A, higher growth in the previous years, B, the regulatory guidance, and C, some regulatory specific actions around moderating credit growth on the unsecured side. We're also at an industry level seeing slightly elevated delinquency numbers, which essentially result in the prime and below segments being cut from or being reduced from a new acquisition perspective. On the other side, like I said earlier, we are investing in the secured growth.
Our secured business, on a very small base, has grown very well. Now our secured contribution for last quarter was about 34%, one-third on disbursal count. On the cost measures, like Yashish mentioned, now we're moving to a situation where we expect H2 to remain tight in terms of growth. We are going ahead and cutting the or moderating the operating expenses ahead of the revenue drop to make sure that we are able to be efficient for H2 and then wait for the markets to show positive, definitive signs of unsecured coming back. I would just like to say one thing that at a fundamental level, if you look at the industry where the liabilities growth, again, if you follow the industry, liabilities growth is back, growing slightly better than previous few quarters.
So we expect the liabilities growth for industry to grow at about between 12% and 14%. And once that happens on a consistent basis, I expect that once the level settles in, the 14% or so needs to be deployed back into credit in a mix of unsecured and secured. So we'll see that growth coming back.
And on the Policybazaar question, I will just request Sarbvir to chip in, please.
Yeah, thanks, Yashish. So I think the question was on the segment growth. I think the growth.
The contribution.
Yeah. So segments have been growing in a very similar way in both Q1 and Q2. We continue to see very strong growth in life and in health. On the contribution side, I think there are two points. One is that as fresh health grows faster than the overall business, that has a slight impact in terms of the reported contribution, the first-year contribution. So if you take out fresh health, we're not sharing those numbers, but you will find that actually our contribution has gone up in Q1 and Q2 if you compare the rest of the business. So actually, the contribution growth is exactly as it should be given the mix of the business. As Yashish mentioned, there has been extra cost in Q1 and Q2 where we've invested in growing our operational capability for the season.
And so you should expect, just like last year, if you see, there was a delta in the second half versus the first half of, I think, 200-300 basis points. And somewhere in that region, it should be similar outcome should happen. We can't say exactly what will happen. See, I just want to say broadly that the thought process on the insurance side is that we are seeing strong growth. So we want to invest ahead of that growth. And so I mean, in the sense that if in the second half, we feel that we should prepare more for the first half of next year or something like that, we will continue to invest because I think our shareholders would want us to invest at this stage and grow the business rather than reporting a few hundred basis points of margin in any given quarter.
No, absolutely. I think there's one little piece in comparing quarters, and it's usually not very good comparing quarters. See, April, we did not have much of brand advertising. So what that leads to is that in Q2, you might see a slightly higher brand advertising, about INR 20 crores. Now, that's a very significant number when it comes to contribution or profit numbers. So, wouldn't Q2 have seen a 20 crore higher brand spend. But that is largely because in April, May, June, you may advertise only two out of three months. So with that, I don't think there's much else to kind of add in that. But to Sarbvir's point and to the point I mentioned, we are at this point not trying to optimize for a few basis points here and there. I think the objective is to grow.
We know what net present value we do our business at, and it's very, very profitable for us. Of course, it will never show up in the first year because health is a business where a bulk of the profitability lies in the renewals. So when you grow in the first year, you will not see that. And that will lead to some diminishing of margins. However, that is obviously going to pay up in the coming years, and that is far more important.
Thank you, Shreya. We'll take the next question from Sachin Dixit. Sachin, please unmute yourself.
Thanks, Rasleen. Congrats, Yashish and team, on another great set of results. I had a couple of questions. The first one was in terms of growth, right? So as Yashish already highlighted, the growth that we are seeing currently is unparalleled. I was just wondering, going forward basis, will there be a base effect issue that might crop up in fiscal year 2026 that rather than having the medium-term, like the 30-odd% growth, we might end up being around more like 24, 25-odd%? Can that sort of thing play out?
So you said you had many questions. That's the only question. See, I've always said from the day of IPO, there's one thing we can never predict, which is how much we are going to grow. Everything else is actually very, very straightforward. We can predict everything else quite precisely. Renewal growth, profit, all those things we can predict very, very accurately. And we are very excited that we are growing. We are not seeing any signs of slowdown yet. We are actually growing on a pretty large base already. So this is growth on growth. Now we are starting to grow at 60%, on 60%. So we are ourselves surprised. Sometimes we pinch ourselves. That is this true. But let's see. As I said, our medium-term, so me and Sarbvir discuss it all the time, our basic understanding is 30% is what we want to target in the medium-term.
That's a good target to have. We don't want to be below that. Above that is great. Above that, I don't ask Sarbvir any questions. Anyway, Sarbvir, I don't ask any questions anyway. But as long as he's kind of doing double of that, I can't go to him and say, "Please reduce cost also," or something of that sort. So I don't have any such questions whatsoever.
Sachin, I'd just like to add one thing here. See, we have always maintained a large part of population who has intention to buy insurance in the near future come to Policybazaar, especially for protection products. And there were some reasons for them leaking out. And over the last three years, the team has worked very hard in terms of setting up multiple offices across India to cater to different languages, physical meetings, strengthening on the product side, strengthening on claims side with putting up a whole team. All these things have started to add up. And a lot of people who would have come earlier and maybe found some excuse to leak out, that leak out has started to come down over the last two, three years. And India still is very, very underprivileged from insurance perspective. And there's no reason for us not to grow.
But as Yashish said, whether it will be 30%, 40%, 50%, we'll see. Obviously, our aim is to grow as fast as possible. That time is not a problem in India, to be honest. It's a very, very large customer base.
And I think a very telling conversation actually happened yesterday. And it's just anecdotal. But I was actually speaking with somebody, and this person said, "Look, historically, I used to actually come to Policybazaar and then go and buy directly. But now I'm actually buying on Policybazaar." And this is a very knowledgeable person from the financial services industry because he said, "I know that at the point of claims, you guys help." So I think that is becoming a very serious position. So I think the reason not to buy from Policybazaar is going away slowly.
All credit to Sarbvir and team for kind of executing that, making sure that reason doesn't exist anymore.
Fair enough. Another thing which obviously has been you have been in the media talking about is the healthcare insurance. There was no mention of that in the presentation. Is there any update on that, any board discussion, any approvals that you are likely to announce?
On what?
Yes. So I wanted to just take this opportunity, since you've asked this question, to clarify a few things, right? PB Health is not a, and I'm not going at pains to explain this, right? But the point is PB Health is not a Policybazaar subsidiary or a Policybazaar initiative. I just wanted to clarify that. Policybazaar wants to make it happen. And see, I'll try to, I think you know the what and why. Maybe the how is not very clear. The what is very clear to us that whenever I speak to insurance companies, they are not very happy with the situation. They all believe that there are excesses at the provider end because of which their claims cost goes up. And also, they believe the customer experience suffers. When I speak to hospitals, they are also unhappy with the situation. So everybody's sort of unhappy.
Everybody does not trust each other. I think then I asked insurance companies, and I've started doing this recently, that what would you do if you owned your own hospitals? The first thing they usually say is, "We'd like to run them as charities." I say, "But assume that's not possible. Assume that's not a feasible option. They have to make money." They said, "We would just like to agree SOPs with them, and they should just follow those SOPs. If they follow those SOPs, we believe the cost will anyways come down by 20% or so." I say, "But what will you do for the customer if that were the case? Would you be able to? The customer has a 25% out of pocket today.
Will you be able to reduce that out of pocket for the customer?" They say, "Yeah, absolutely." And I say, "Does that mean the customer will have lower friction at the point of claims?" They say, "Yeah, if it was our hospital, we trust it fully. We actually don't need an approval process." They say, "What do we have an approval process for? We don't know what the customer has told the doctor. We want to know because the customer has told us one thing, and he's told the doctor another thing. And we want that discussion between the customer and the doctor to be disclosed. We want." And so it's basically a lack of trust. So if there is an outsourced facility for the insurance industry, I think the claims experience can improve. Now, Policybazaar will not be the one who will set this up.
But if this gets set up, Policybazaar is a huge gainer because if the insurance customers buy more insurance because the insurance experience becomes better. And if Policybazaar is also a shareholder in that, and Policybazaar can claim to its customers that, "Listen, when the situation arises, we'll be able to help you in this situation, and we'll make sure your claims experience is very, very smooth," I think Policybazaar will benefit humongously. And the industry will benefit humongously. And so everybody I speak to is quite keen on that project happening. Now, what position Policybazaar will take in that totally depends on its own shareholders and its board. So those approvals we still have to take. At this point, yeah, the what and why are extremely clear. The how is becoming clearer, but there isn't an approval in place yet.
Understood. Understood. Sounds good. Thanks so much and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sachin. We'll take the next question from Nidhesh. Nidhesh, please unmute yourself.
Hi. Am I audible?
Yes, Nidhesh.
Thanks. Just continuing with the healthcare business, just trying to understand from a very top-down point of view, if you have to make it sort of a business of scale, and when I say you, I mean the venture has to be a venture of scale, what kind of CapEx are we really looking at over a multi-year period? And what companies you will?
So I'll answer in two ways. The only thing that Policybazaar is not sure of at this point is whether that venture will make money or not. It has no clue. What it knows is that Policy will benefit. And that's the only reason Policybazaar is involved. Policybazaar is not investing in this venture from a financial return perspective. Policybazaar, if it is investing, is investing from an enablement perspective because this venture benefits Policybazaar a lot, a huge amount, right? And the industry a huge amount. That's why the industry supports it. That's why Policybazaar supports it.
Now, what happens to that venture, how much capital that venture needs to raise, whether that venture is profitable or not, is a question for the shareholders of that venture to decide, not for us to think about as Policybazaar shareholders because we are not the people who are building that or anything of that sort. I'm just trying to clarify. I think this line, this distinction needs to be drawn very clearly because I don't think Policybazaar shareholders need to worry about whether that venture is going to be profitable, how much capital that will require. Yes, Policybazaar board will decide what is the upper limit of the exposure Policybazaar wants to have in a situation like this where Policybazaar thinks of how much it can invest to make sure that this venture happens. But it is investing for only one reason.
Please appreciate this. Only one reason, which is to make Policybazaar grow faster, not to make a financial return. And what I would say is, suppose Policybazaar can achieve at the lower end a 5% extra growth every year because of this venture. You can imagine what that means over a 10-year period, right? And how that will play out. So I think I would leave it there at this point because otherwise it becomes too complicated a story, right? That one is trying to justify the PB Health venture to PB shareholders. I don't think that makes sense.
Fair point, so PB will be like a founder promoter, or is it a minority shareholder in this?
That totally depends on what the board approves. We haven't even gone to the board for any approval. We don't have a proposal to go to the board yet.
Okay. Got it. You mentioned, sorry, just moving on. You mentioned that UAE is up 63%. Does that include corporate as well?
UAE, that includes everything in the UAE. And the premium has grown at 63%, yes.
Corporate business?
Yeah, it's mostly. Yeah, they don't have any corporate business.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it.
Yeah, they are almost, so you want to know how much corporate business has grown?
Yeah.
Oh, corporate business is done about, it's grown at 62%. It's done INR 189 crores.
Got it. Just the new initiatives margin, is it possible for you to split this or give some color between POSP and UAE and corporate?
The UAE and corporate are very small from a P&L perspective. From a profit perspective, they would be combined maybe 10%-15% of the total profit or loss of the new initiative. So new initiative is largely POSP plus, if I would call it. POSP is of the profit part and the loss part. And yeah, so 85%, I would say, would be POSP.
What's driving margin expansion in the new initiatives?
Yeah, basically in POSP, you have to understand the business very clearly. POSP is not a massively profitable business ever. So somebody who believes that POSP will start generating the same kind of margins like contribution margins like Policybazaar has is dreaming because that's impossible, right? Nobody will work for you for, let's say Policybazaar core is making, I'm just saying, suppose 40% margins. Nobody's going to give you their business for 60% of the going commission rate. So if the going commission rate is, let's say, 20%, if you give somebody less than 12%, they're not going to give you their business. So that's impossible, right? Ever, and that's before you put any direct cost into it. So I think it's a very low margin, high-scale business.
I think that is where many of the investors have got confused by that business because that business, you can scale very rapidly without necessarily—like you can burn whatever you feel like, but without necessarily increasing your burn dramatically. So unlike a B2C business, it does not have marketing costs or sales costs. What it has is basically you're a platform, and you're a very thin margin. It's like a payment gateway business, right? You're a very thin margin business, payment gateway business with some operating expenses. So your profit and loss both don't increase and don't change a lot with scale. Unlike Policybazaar where, because of the, unlike the core business where your profit and loss shift dramatically because of scale, in a POSP business, that would not happen. So what you would see is it will slowly ebb towards zero, and then it will become profitable also.
But by that time, the core business will become significantly more profitable. and so it would always be irrelevant from a, see, what was happening if you look at the last two years, the core business was making X profit, and this thing was making minus X loss. so it was to an extent both were looking similar. but as you look at it over a three, four-year period, the core business will become 10 times bigger in terms of profit or loss, whatever. I hope not loss, but the profit compared to whatever losses we make on this side. so this part becomes irrelevant. but I think that's what the POSP business is. Scale has nothing to do with losses because your losses are your fixed costs, and your payout versus paying margin is very, very close to 90%, 95%, etc.
So if you are making 20% commission in that business, you are eventually left with only 2% to do everything else. So I think that's very important to understand, at least from an investor perspective. We understand this, but I think investors need to understand it. B2C and POSP are very, very different. I still believe many don't understand it.
Fair point. And just finally, most of this is motor TP, right? I mean, I think in the past you...
It's not. Yeah, now lots of health, etc., starts happening there. But yeah, but we have the highest share of non-motor, but.
What is the mix like? What is the mix like?
We don't give out that number. We don't give out that number. But that number on a revenue basis, see, because there's a reason why we don't give out these numbers. It can be very misleading for people. But on revenue basis, it could be quite significant. More than a third of the revenue might be coming from non-motor.
Got it. And just one final one is life insurance companies have been kind of telling us that on the guaranteed return products, there is some kind of a discussion, negotiation that's happening with the distributors. So just wanted to understand what kind of conversations are you really having with them, right?
We are genuinely not involved in any of those conversations because we don't really sell those products. But Sarbvir is the best person to answer that.
No, I think, as Nidhesh said, the mix of our business is not towards those products. And secondly, I think if you see the persistency and the quality of business that we have, I think we are really not the channel where these issues will arise. So I think that both those points, I mean, A, it's a very small portion of our business, and B, I think we have the credibility and the quality has been established with our partners that they are not really coming to us. I think they have to handle it in the other channels where obviously it's a bigger issue.
Sorry, I was a bit wrong. Our total new initiative loss, so UAE and corporate are about 45% of the current loss. That's because POSP losses have really come down. So just wanted to clarify that. So POSP losses have come down quite a bit. So it's not 85%. It's about 55% is POSP. And Dubai and corporate are about the same. The reason I say that is because Dubai and corporate sort of they lose INR 1- INR 3 crores every month. And that's been quite flat for the last two, three years. So it's not like they, relatively to other businesses, they don't make a big dent on things.
Got it. Thank you very much and all the best.
Sure.
Thank you, Nidhesh . We'll take the next question from Dipanjan Ghosh . Dipanjan, please unmute yourself. We'll take the next question from Manas. Manas, please unmute yourself.
Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity. I had a couple of questions on the PB Health, but before that, one question on the core business. Is there any change in ULIP momentum because of the recent market cooldown? And then on PB Health, you mentioned that PB Health will benefit. I understand that's very clear. Can you also share, and maybe it's too early, the modalities around this? Is this a co-branded product? Is this a potential distribution exclusivity, or is it just a larger addressable market? The second is, as a PB shareholder and not a shareholder at the new venture, how should we think about capital allocation in this venture? Is this going to be a one-time investment, especially when we are talking about the new entity, not necessarily clear about their financial viability or their model of profitability? Those were my questions.
I will let Sarbvir answer the first question on ULIP.
I would say, Manas, that it's too early to say anything. I think last month was a confusing month in any case because of Diwali and all those holidays and all. So we like to look at October, November together. So we'll get a better sense next month. But yeah, I mean, I would say very generally speaking, a little bit of up and down in the market doesn't affect the business that much. But obviously, if there is a prolonged downturn or something like that, then I think the business will definitely be impacted.
On PB Health, the way I would say we haven't gone to the board, and the board has to approve this, and we have to, first of all, go to the board. My hope is that we would go to the board at some point with a one-time investment option, and it will be somewhere between $0-$100 million. It's a one-time investment. It will not be repeated. The remaining investors who come into PB Health are very aware of that, that PB is limited by this as a one-time investment. To the comment I made about, "Look, let other people worry," I think once the quality of investors that come on board in the new venture are clear, I think it would be clear that they have clearly thought about why they want to invest in that venture.
That would also mean there is enough financial prudence on that venture to make it now. What is the problem we are trying to solve? The problem we are trying to solve is a very simple one. Today, the customer is not having a great claims experience. And that is largely arising because of lack of trust between three entities: the insurance company, the customer, and the hospital. And unfortunately, at the point of claim, the hospital and the customer are sort of become somewhat on one side. And so whether that is, we shouldn't even be speaking about these. Me, as Chairman of a large public company, I don't know how much I should speak about things like overcharging, overtreatment, all kinds of things that go on in the market. But they are quite commonplace.
I'm not saying any one entity or a group of entities is responsible for it. But today, we are a pay-for-service health system. And what that means is the healthcare system makes money. It's obvious. They obviously make money when a treatment happens. So if I don't go to the hospital, the hospital makes nothing from me. And I think if I have an insurance policy and I don't go to the hospital, the insurance company makes all the money from me. Now, thinking through how will the products be constructed, how will it all happen, I think for that, I would say wait for PB Health to become a public company. And then let's have those questions on PB Health once it is a public company. Till then, whoever are the private shareholders of PB Health will handle those questions.
It's their responsibility to lose their money, I would say, if they do lose their money. But you asked about the shareholders of PB Fintech. Now, two parts here. As Nidhesh mentioned earlier, if this can allow the growth for Policybazaar to be higher, even by just 5%, 7%, that is a very material positive thing for Policybazaar or PB Fintech. From capital allocation perspective, we have come out about a couple of weeks back and mentioned that we propose to have about $100 million investment into this venture post-board approval. Bulk of that investment, if you just think about this venture, will go towards the CapEx. And a hospital CapEx, which is mostly a real estate infrastructure play, will technically not just erode overnight. So that will hold its value. And as it becomes successful in its own right, that value keeps on increasing.
So from a perspective, it is just a small capital allocation, which is mostly going towards CapEx with very low possibility of capital erosion. But from PB Fintech perspective, the growth which it can drive for industry and for us can be very meaningful. Now and I just wanted to clarify one thing. The reason we are getting into it is not because we think healthcare is a great opportunity and we should go into healthcare and set up hospitals and run hospitals. No, that is not the reason why we are getting into it. So I think this is a confusion if people believe that to be so. The reason we are getting into it is because we believe the insurance industry and thus Policybazaar, you are seeing our growth rates, right?
With these growth rates, we are becoming a very meaningful part of the industry and a very meaningful partner in the growth of this industry, and so for us, it's very critical to look at the long-term growth of the industry. And that is the reason we are getting into it because we are seeing that particular problem. We are seeing this as a potential problem for the industry growth, if not solved. And thus why, while we don't have the ability to do this entirely on our own, if this is happening, we would love to encourage it in whichever way, so evangelizing, encouragement, etc., etc. I think now that said, I am just as excited about that side of the opportunity as well, but that is me personally, that I don't think is a different matter.
I don't think we should confuse the public company Policybazaar with that thinking of why this is a great opportunity by itself. Because that will just lead to us kind of hijacking the Policybazaar story with PB Health story.
Understood. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Manas. With that request, Dipanjan [audio inaudible] .
Hi. Am I audible now?
Yes, Dipanjan.
So just a few questions. First, if you look at, let's say, product-wise on the insurance side, on the core insurance side, and look at the new business margins, without quantifying, would it be a fair assumption to make that on a YoY basis? Across products, you would have seen a margin improvement, but maybe because of the mix shift towards health or more towards a hybrid strategy, maybe there would have been a drag. But across products, would it be? I mean, what would be the trajectory on a YoY basis in terms of new business margins on the core business? The second question, in your presentation, you have mentioned that because of the hybrid strategy, your premium per inquiry and your conversion rates have kind of inched up. So just wanted to get an idea on two things.
One is, what would be the mix of the products which gets converted at the hybrid model? And second, is there a meaningful differential for the same product in terms of margins, whether it gets converted through your call center or through the hybrid model? Last, on the insurance side, you have mentioned that there are 190-plus cities where you have health support and claim support, and there are 200-plus cities where the hybrid model is in place. So would you like to quantify on the overall feet-on-street expansion that these two initiatives would have seen, let's say, over the past 12 months? And just one question on the credit side, maybe. So if you can split the revenue between credit cards and disbursals. And second, what would be the differential between, let's say, secured and unsecured realization rates?
Sure. I think I would let Sarbvir cover the insurance questions first and then come to credit.
Yeah. So, Dipanjan, I'll go in order. The first question was on new business margins. New business margins on a like-for-like basis are largely the same year to year. There may be actually a small, I would say, delta erosion rather than growth in like-for-like margins, simply because if you see the quality of products that are being sold on our platform, so you'll find that now we sell, in most cases, products which have better features and, in some cases, lower cost than the average in the market. And that is a very conscious choice because of the quality of business that we have. We are willing to trade off that upfront price for greater volume. So, I think the new business margins are largely the same. If anything, they may be a little bit on the downside only.
In terms of the hybrid, the question that you had, see, our hybrid business works with the marketing cost being the same, right? The lead comes through the online channel, and we have already paid for it. So I think it would not be fair to look at just hybrid margin versus overall. We actually look at it as an overall, whether the AP per lead or the business economics are improving or not. And I think that you can very clearly see that they are. The hybrid or the feet-on-street is now almost 25% of our business in health and life insurance. And we still feel that there is potential for that to grow. This team is growing at a faster rate than the rest of the business. Of course, there was a smaller base to begin with.
But I think we feel more and more confident that this strategy is working and the fact that it has legs. So it's not like we have covered the area that we could cover. But I think now we have the confidence to go deeper, and we are investing both in people, in leadership, in infrastructure so that we can build this into a much larger business in the years to come.
In terms of credit, your question on revenue mix, unsecured credit would be about 60%. Credit cards would be about 20%-25%, and secured would be about 10%-15%. So secured is about 10%. Unsecured is about 70%, and maybe 20% is credit cards. On the total disbursal, secured will be a lot larger. Secured will be about a third, but secured is also about a third of the take rate. So just sort of I think that gives you a flavor of the mix there. See, we are growing secured right now, but that doesn't mean unsecured is going away. Unsecured is, in our opinion, just going through a dip. This happened in COVID. In COVID, we went down to almost zero revenue on the unsecured side. And this is happening again. I actually see it as a margin expansion opportunity, to be honest.
So if you think on a multi-year basis, when COVID happened, before that, our margins in Paisabazaar used to be zero. After that, our contribution margins became 40%. So I think we realized we did not need as many people. I still believe that is the case. And I think this will give us an opportunity to reduce and not come back up in terms of the actual manpower costs. And obviously, technology, etc., helps. So it's a phase we are going through. The phase is lasting longer. We thought it would last two quarters. It's probably lasting four or five quarters. But that's fine. It's just a phase. I think I would hope 2026 will be a very different result from 2025.
Got it. Just one small follow-up on a previous participant's question. When you say 30% medium-term sort of vision, I would assume it would be on the fresh business, right? Because your backbook growth, I mean, the sort of new business growth you've seen over the last two to three years should kind of mirror on the renewal side, let's say, over the next three to four years. I mean, is that a fair assumption?
All I would say is, yes, the renewal growth is quite predictable, and we can build it out quite easily. And so can you. I think fresh business is very difficult to predict. Please hear us, right? What we're saying is, over a three-year, four-year period, our target is to have 30% fresh business growth. It's a good stretch target, right? It's not an easy target. Now, if there come a few quarters where it is lower, don't start shooting us. Just like we're not asking you to kind of put us on a pedestal just because we're growing at 60% for, yeah, but now it's gone on for like four quarters or so. But I would say, I think these things will happen. Things will move up and down. But I think on a steady basis, I was looking at the numbers.
Our three-year CAGR is about 41% on fresh business. So I looked at that number. So I think our three-year CAGR is quite strong. And what we are saying is maybe the next three, four years, CAGR is going to be maybe 30%.
Got it. Thanks for the detailed explanations and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dipanjan. We'll take the next question from Jayant Kharote . Jayant, please unmute yourself.
Thanks, Rasleen, and congrats for a good set of numbers. First is on the addition that you've been doing to your teams, both, I think, online or even offline. If you can help us understand how is the gestation period over a year, if you could quantify the number of people you've added over a year, and what are the plans going into 3Q, 4Q, and then the gestation period, that is the first question. I'll come back with the second question after this.
So yeah, look, it's a variable cost. As we anticipate business and inquiries, our inquiries are also going up, we deploy people. As we have said repeatedly, Q1 and Q2, there has been about $1 million a month of extra cost on the ops side, which we deployed because we were seeing a higher-than-expected growth. And we continue to see that growth. So our hope is that in the second half of the year, we would not need as much additional capacity. And I think it will play out quite well. In fact, see, and the gestation period is a few months. People don't sort of come on and become a person in our shop and suddenly become productive.
And that's the reason we said that, look, in the lean period, which is the first two years, in the first two quarters, let's deploy a little extra so that we can really reap the benefit when we get to Q3, Q4. So this is a hopefully will be a good strategy. It could have proven to be a bad strategy if we did not get the growth. But so far, it's looking okay. And, fingers crossed, it will prove to be a good strategy as we go through. But we don't expect the number of people to go up too much from here for the rest of the year because we would now kind of live off the vintage.
Great. And is there any product gestation as well? Do the new staff start with certain product and then the basket increases? Is there a strategy like that?
Yeah. Most of our people go into specializing in a particular product. Handling a single product for customers from 20 companies is quite a complicated task to start with. So they are mostly specialists at one product, at any one product.
Understood. The second question is on the POSP business. Again, we see the losses have come down significantly over a year. There's also some news of a merger in that space. And you have been sort of talking about, at some stage in future, consolidation in the sector. And we see the signs of that playing out. Does this mean that this place can start seeing better profitability? And probably we are nearing that phase of consolidation in the next, say, four to six quarters.
Hear me very, very clearly on this. I've said it in the past. We will be acyclical. That is the right strategy to follow. So when the market starts becoming profitable, we'll start making losses in that area. And when the market starts making losses, we will hold back. I will not clarify more. That's our general strategy. It does not mean anything from a quarter-on-quarter perspective. But that is exactly the strategy we'll follow. And I'm saying over a five, 10-year period, that is the strategy we'll follow. We will always be counter-cyclical, which is what a market leader should be. A confident market leader who's a marathon runner has to be counter-cyclical. Does not start sprinting just because some kids are sprinting for five kilometers. He waits for them to tire out. When they tire out, he tells them that, "You are tired. I'm going fast now." Right?
So I think, yeah, I'll stop there. But that's the counter-cyclical is the word.
So in this last question, are you open to inorganic acquisitions or inorganic growth in that?
Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. Not at any price like is in the market. Not even one third of those.
Thanks, guys, and congrats once again for a great setup now.
All right.
Thank you, Jayant. We'll request Rishi now to please unmute yourself. Rishi Jhunjhunwala , please unmute yourself.
Yeah, thank you. Just one question, Yashish, on the thought process around POSP, right? So if we really look at it, our new initiatives are now almost 40% of our overall insurance business revenues, maybe slightly less, and has grown at almost 2x our core insurance revenues. Just wanted to understand how much of this growth is intentionally pushed by us versus how the business is evolving and how the business is coming to us. And if we are driving this growth to be that much faster, then what is the thought process around it, given that it is anyways considered not that much margin accretive in the long term as well?
So, I'll answer it to some level, and then I think Sarbvir is the right person for this. See, strategically, we are doing POSP for scale. We are also doing it because we started doing it because it was happening. So we were a late entrant. If you remember, we were almost the last entrant in the market. We became a market leader within about three, four months. That usually should tell you how easy or difficult a business is. If somebody can become a market leader in three, four months, it usually means it's not a very complicated business. And almost anybody who's tried to scale in POSP has succeeded if they had the money. There is almost nobody who's failed if they had the money to scale in POSP, right?
Now, that said, the scale has humongous benefits from a relationship perspective for us because our overall business grows because of that, and we would be delighted to have a larger business. So nothing wrong there. It doesn't cost a huge amount. Losses are coming down, and we'll continue to do so, at least in a medium-term basis. I don't know, Sarbvir, if you want to add anything specific.
No, no. I just want to say that, see, about four quarters ago, in fact, last April, May, June quarter, we made a decisive shift in the business from really forcing the growth. I think the word that you're using, if I were to say that, perhaps we were forcing the growth till then, but after that, we have actually switched gears, and we have gone deeper into the market, both in terms of working with smaller and smaller agents and in geographies where other people are not there, so now, if you see, I think it is no longer that we are forcing the growth, because if we were forcing the growth, then our profitability would not come, right? We would lose more and more money.
The fact that we are able to grow at, frankly, almost 100%, I think, in the first half, and improve our losses or keep the investment constant or lower than last year indicates that we are not forcing the growth, but we are doing something right. I think to give credit to the team, I think the fact that our platform is now clearly superior to everybody else. I think the fact that our sales capability is now superior to everybody else, the fact that agents are trusting us more than they are trusting other platforms. See, finally, this is about agents. This is not about anybody else. The fact that agents are now trusting us more than anybody else because we pay on time, we pay in full, etc., etc., I think is now starting to bite.
And so today, I don't think we are forcing it. And this has implications for how this business will grow in the future. This is not going to be a business where you're going to make a lot of money in terms of margin percentage. But perhaps at some point, if you have a lot of scale, you will start making some money. And I think that's our hope, and that's where we are trying to drive this business. And I think our confidence in, I would say, growing this business and investing behind it has only grown in the last three years because it's rare for a business in its fourth year to be growing faster than it's in its first few years, right? That's quite a rare thing. And with better economics. So I think there's everything to like.
But yeah, we have to be very realistic about the shape of this business. And hence, I think comparison of POSP premium with core business premium and saying that it's 40% or whatever is probably not the right way to look at it. I would not encourage you to go in that direction.
Oh, yeah, certainly not. It's like India has a football team and a hockey team, and they're saying because our hockey team does well, our football team shouldn't do well. I don't think that's right. They're totally different. We want gold medals in both of them, but I just want to say Policybazaar, our core, is growing the fastest it has ever done in its 17th year, so just saying.
Fair enough. The second question is you talked about extra investments you have made in the last one or two quarters on building up capacity. And there is typically slightly higher ad spends and other things that have happened in 2Q as well. Is it fair to assume that our overall cost pool should be relatively flattish over the next two, three quarters, given the capacity built up and some of the extra expenses that have done already? And secondly, is there any change in the ESOP charge trajectory, which was 200 crore this year and 100 crore next year? Is there any change to that roadmap?
ESOP should flatten out and maybe somewhat come down. That's the easy part. On the operating investment, I think it'll be a mixed bag because, see, we also have incentives for people. And so as the business grows, hopefully, the incentives will also grow. And I always say incentives are a good thing, not a bad thing. However, there's always a wastage. And I'll explain what that wastage is. See, when you have new agents in the first three months, they are not able to do a lot of business. And that is their training time, hiring time, training time, and there are costs involved in that. I think in the second half, you will see much less of that. And that was demonstrably at scale in the last two, three quarters. So I think that delta of that vintage, the benefit of vintage, you will receive.
However, it won't be absolutely flat. Obviously, in season, we hope something great happens in season from a business perspective.
Understood. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you, Rishi. We'll take the next question from Suresh Ganapathy . Suresh, please unmute yourself.
Yeah. Yashish, so first, I mean, on this PB Health, again, I know a lot of discussion has been done. So is this entity already set up? The construct of the entity is clear, or that will evolve with time? I mean, who will be the partners here and all those stuff?
Nothing is finalized yet, yeah. Nothing is finalized yet. There is no entity set up. Nothing is finalized yet.
Okay. So how have you guys arrived at the fact that this will contribute 5% more growth? I mean, you will have exclusive arrangements as a broker to sell, or how did you arrive at this 5% number? I know these are ballpark numbers, but then what is the thought process of arriving at this revenue? Yeah.
See, if the customer's experience improves, today, I would assume you would agree that claims is a pain point in the industry. Would you agree with that or not?
Yes, yes, yes.
Sometimes it takes people up to six hours, and the claims, what is the insurance company trying to verify at the point of claim when it is giving an approval to the hospital? First of all, an insurance company has to give an approval to the hospital. What it's trying to verify is what did the customer declare in its proposal form? Okay, so I won't go into the long story. I think we all get it. Basically, the idea is if claims experience becomes better, the industry will grow faster. We, as a part of the industry, will obviously be a beneficiary of that higher growth of the industry. What I expect is if the claims experience becomes better, the industry to itself grow at 5% faster rates over a 10-year period, and maybe because Policy was involved, it could actually do much better than that.
But yeah, I think 5% is a relatively straightforward, and I would say a low-balled assumption to have over a 10-year period for the expected growth one could receive if healthcare, if basically claims process was to get streamlined. So I think that is what is driving it, yeah. It is not a very scientific why 5 and why not 7 or 3.
Yashish, 5% for a $100 million investment is a complete bargain. I mean, so my point here is I don't think you can do away with a $100 million investment. So if you're so really convinced about the venture, why not go whole hog in? I mean, $100 million is not going to give you 5% growth for a long period of time, right? I mean, the commitment should be larger if that's the case.
I'll explain. I'll explain. Policybazaar is not once questioning what will be the profitability of this venture. It's not a financial investment for Policybazaar. Whether that investment works or does not work financially is not really Policybazaar's major concern. Other investors who are coming into it, for them, it's a concern. But for Policybazaar, that's not the concern. Policybazaar is investing in it to enable the venture. If the venture requires X amount of investment, Policybazaar is saying, "I'm here to support it." Policybazaar is also there to provide it aerial support in terms of customer evangelizing that, "Look, this is a good thing," right? And Policybazaar has a great role in that. Today, a very large percentage of customers who purchase health insurance come to the Policybazaar platform. So it can be a very big evangelizer for this.
So I think Policybazaar benefits this platform, and this platform benefits Policybazaar. Now, this platform actually does not care whether Policybazaar makes money, and Policybazaar does not care whether this platform makes money. But they both benefit each other sufficiently that these ties make sense. So this venture, the investors in this venture, by the way, are interested in Policybazaar having an equity stake in it, not for the money, but because Policybazaar's involvement is important for them because it has a huge steering role, right? And they want some skin in the game from Policybazaar to make it. So Policybazaar is playing an enabling role. And this venture is helping Policy. So I think it works on both fronts, and I agree with you. It would be a big mistake not to do this. I totally agree with you.
But once it is set up, this venture has to take care of itself, whether it does an IPO, whether it raises money from other investors. But once it establishes its own credibility, it's like in a way when Info Edge invested with us. Of course, that was not an operational partnership. After that, Info Edge was not responsible for our future. After that, we were responsible for our future. And similarly, the management of this venture will be responsible for its future, not Policybazaar.
Okay. And then what are the rough timelines, you believe, by which this entity can be operational and official? Could take another 12 months? Yeah.
I would hope before the end of this financial year. That's a hope. And that's what Policybazaar would want to happen. But it takes two hands to clap. The other party also has to be willing. The other parties also have to be willing.
Yeah. And your annual free cash flow would be how much? I mean, for what you're expecting for FY25, roughly?
FY25 should be about maybe $60 million. But next year should be more than 100. So 26 should be more than 100.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Thanks so much, Yashish.
Thank you.
Thank you, Suresh. We'll take the next question from Preeti. Preeti, please unmute yourself.
Hi. Good morning.
Guys, we are out of the time right now. It's already 9:00 A.M. We want to continue because there are a lot of questions we can see. So maybe we'll extend by another 15 minutes if that's okay.
Sure. Please, please, please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. So my question is again on the stage of growth that we are. So the health industry, you see the retail health industry is growing at 18%, and we are growing almost a 3x plus. So how do you think of this math? Because I think we had a broad thumb rule when we were going public that if the industry is growing at 15%, we should at least grow 2x given the accelerated online penetration. So what is happening, I mean, right now, and this is happening at a time when the lives in retail health, I think that growth is actually quite muted. So could you help us understand what factors it could attribute this supernormal growth to?
Sure. See, I think, Preeti, we are a large advertiser in this category. We have been evangelizing this category. I think in the last 17 years, if you ask customers who has been educating them about health insurance and term insurance, it is Policybazaar, and that stands out, right? I think, and we are somewhere reaping the benefits of that. To a large extent, we have done the right thing, good disclosures, which means a profitable business for insurers with decent claims ratios. So on the whole, I call it karma is kind of coming to roost where we are benefiting from that karma.
But in addition to the past, there's a huge amount of effort that's gone in the present, which is the feet on the street, which is the new products that the team has been working on, which is the Claims Assist platform that we have built. And I think what we are encouraging in the health side is just another thing in that same direction to make the—and if you really think about it, if you take Policybazaar out of the equation, assume Policybazaar, you just simplistically just subtract it from the entire industry, you would see a steep decline in the lives covered in health insurance. So I think there's something good going on because now it's been consistent for the last four quarters or so. We have been growing at a steady rate and now growing on growth. And we hope it continued.
In car, we have started the Assured Delivery p rogram, which is also working well, where there are tie-ups with garages where the timeline for the customer is reducing and the cost for the insurance company is reducing. However, the biggest benefit to the customer is he's being informed all the time what is happening to their car. Is their car in the garage? Is their car repaired? Is the car ready for delivery? And I think the customer just wanted that feedback, that engagement. So Policybazaar is stepping out. So we are a strong operations company. I think Sarbvir and his team have done a phenomenal job on the operations strength. And it does not take one thing. I'm sure if we call out each of those things that we have done, we will come back to zero growth. But not zero, maybe 20% growth.
But a lot of additional growth is coming because of the extra things we are doing step by step. And there's multiple ones of them. In the term insurance, we're doing a Nominee Relief Program in health, in hospital assistance. So there's lots of stuff that we're doing.
So where would our current retail health market share be?
Yeah, it is growing. That's enough. I think it's difficult to say exact. I think the retail health numbers are out there, right? And our numbers are out there. So if you take the overall percentage, we might be, I don't know, 10%-12% if you take renewals into account. If you take just fresh, we'll obviously be much higher. But let's leave that. It's becoming embarrassingly high.
On the new business?
Sorry, what's that?
Only on the new business.
Yeah, it's embarrassingly high. So let's leave it. I think calculations everybody can do. Everybody can do the calculations here. So you know what our new business is. I would say just let's drop it. It's quite high.
Great. Thank you. Thanks, team.
Thank you, Preeti. We take the next question from Nitesh Jain . Nitesh, please unmute yourself.
Thanks for the opportunity. Just one question. Can you share contribution margin in credit business and EBITDA margin for the credit business for the quarter?
Yeah, we are not breaking out the businesses for confidentiality reasons between credit and insurance from a contribution and profit standpoint. But on a contribution basis, they are similar.
Okay. On contribution basis.
On profit, obviously, insurance is higher. But on a contribution basis, they are similar.
Sure. Sure. Thank you.
They are actually same on contribution basis. So yeah.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from Yash. Yash Gandhi, please unmute yourself.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions. First one is that our contribution margin is 27%, right? For Q2 FY25. So I mean, by 2026, do we expect this number to substantially increase to, let's say, 45%, and then over a couple of years to 60%?
We haven't done that much math. Maybe Rasleen can try and answer. But yeah, it will inch upwards. Yeah, over time, of course, it will inch up because of renewals. See, renewals is an 85% margin story. So renewals will continue to make your margins inch up. And the past year of growth, whatever else it may mean for future new business growth, the one thing it does imply is renewals growth in the future because that is obviously this new business that we have done will play up there. And this new business has been margin depressed. See, when we sell new health, once again saying we make zero margin, all that margin comes in renewal. So yes, you will see margin improvement into the future. Exactly how much I—Yash, we don't optimize for contribution margin percentage number.
Yashish said the mix of new and renewal can really have a big impact. Just assume that if we grow at 60% new business versus 10% new business growth, obviously our renewal percentage would be very different in that particular year. That would directly flow down to the contribution margin percentage. Our whole effort is how do we grow faster than new business? That's the P1 for the company, and that's the main focus for everyone. Renewals is more of a process that has to be managed in an efficient manner. That has an obviously huge, huge impact in terms of what our contribution flows down. We're not optimizing for the percentage, contribution margin percentage. Renewals are the highest percentage they've ever been. Renewals, and we track it at a very granular level, R1, R2, R3, all that kind of stuff.
They are at the highest percentage they've ever been, all of them, in numbers and in premium.
Sure. Sure. Got it. And I'm sorry, I think I missed the initial commentary. I don't know if you've given any sort of guidance on your premium growth for the next two, three years.
30%.
Okay.
That's always been our guidance that over a three- or four-year period, 30% fresh business growth.
Got it. Got it. Thank you.
Thank you, Yash. We'll take the next question from Sanketh Godha . Sanketh , please unmute yourself.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Yashish, maybe next year when you will start PB Health, is it fair to assume that you and Alok will take active executive roles there, and probably you will be more non-executive board guys at PB Fintech, and that's the way the management movement will happen?
We don't know as of now. And I think I would say we've taken too many questions on PB Health already. But we don't know at this stage. We don't know.
Okay. And just an adjacency to that point means if you make INR 800 crores of investment or INR 850 crores of investment in PB Health, so the cash on the books of PB Fintech will come down. So is it fair to assume that your other income will take a hit and the 1,000 crore profit guidance, which you have given in 2027, still will remain intact?
Yeah, the guidance will still be intact.
But other income potentially can come down.
Yes, it would. That is absolutely correct. But it could. Not it would. It could. If the board approves this, it could. You're spot on. But factor that in. We will still be fine.
Got it. And lastly, data keeping, just trying to confirm the numbers on premium data. So the new business premium for the core platform is INR 2,060 crores, and renewal is INR 1,860 crores. That's a right number, right?
Approximately, yeah.
Your PB Partners is INR 1,085 crores. Is it a right number? And corporate is INR 189, and Dubai is INR 253.
Absolutely.
Perfect.
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. That's it from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sanketh . We'll take the next question from Srinath. Srinath, please unmute yourself.
Hi guys. Naveen wanted to first understand in the secured business, what kind of products are we doing? How does the fulfillment work? And given that there has to be a document identification and so on and so forth, if you can help us understand how that works, that would be great. And for Sarbvir, we wanted to understand how conversions are playing out from upper funnel in health. Clearly, the growth indicates conversions have gone up. So qualitatively, if you can help us understand how rate of change of conversions is playing out. Again, qualitatively, if you can help us understand if it's across the platform or certain cohorts are doing better, that would be great. Thanks.
Sure, Naveen. On the secured business, currently, home loans is our major product, followed by LAP. We are doing two experiments in smaller products, which is loans against car and loan against mutual funds, but they're very, very small. From a fulfillment perspective, we are focusing on top three cities, which is about 30% of the overall industry, which is Delhi, Bangalore, Bombay. We are setting up the fulfillment teams there. And you're right, of course, there is extensive documentation and a back-and-forth process, which is why we believe that adding fulfillment and FOS would add to the overall funnel and will pay for itself as things stabilize. It's still kind of early days for us, but we stay with the customer through a longer gestation period of secured loans in terms of collecting documents and assisting the customers and connecting both the lender and the consumer.
That means we would have a feet on street here, right, to fulfill similar to what we have in Policybazaar?
Exactly. So we mentioned some of the numbers that we have about 130, 140 people already on the ground. We think this will go to about 300 in the next few months.
Perfect. Perfect. Cool. Thanks. Yeah.
On the health conversion side, yeah, definitely conversion is going up. I think Yashish covered the reasons broadly. We are getting more inquiries. We have better products on the platform. We are able to offer the customer the choice, both in terms of language. So our regional language capability has significantly improved in health this year. We have feet on street, which has expanded again, more cities, better depth, better trained manpower. Even on the call center side, I think the way we are segmenting the customers, etc., is leading to much higher conversions. And then I think the most important thing, the confidence that the customer is getting that Policybazaar will be there when the claim is, we service, I think is finally tying this whole sort of cycle back.
So the funnel is complete because people are getting to hear about these stories that their friends, their relatives, somebody they know has been helped. And I think it takes time. See, this is a very, in my opinion, we are just getting started. And I'm very confident that with the quality of work that the team is doing, that next year this will even further build because people are seeing the concerns that they have with health insurance being handled by Policybazaar. And I think this is a very heartening initiative and result.
Sure. Sa rbvir, would you?
Yeah. Please go ahead.
Sarbvir, would you be able to explain a little more on this regional language bit? That would be helpful.
Yeah. Regional language, now we speak in, I think, 13 languages. We have the capability. We have the technology to guide the call to the right person in terms of which language the customer would like to speak in. We have the ability to transcribe calls. We have the ability to then go back and service the customer in that language. See, the most important thing is not just about sales. It's also about service. So if I bought speaking in Malayalam, then you must service me in Malayalam also. So we are able to do that. And it's an incredibly hard thing operationally to keep managing this cycle because then renewal, you have to make sure that the renewal happens in that language. So it's a capability that we are building. And I think it's still we are evolving and we are learning in that.
Sure. Perfect.
I just wanted to kind of answer the previous question where I think Sanketh had asked about executive, non-executive, and all those kind of things. I wanted to be crystal clear, but I don't want to be wishy-washy about it. See, you have to at least, and Alok, if he wants to speak too, can speak for himself. You have to understand at least me as a person. One investor just called me up about three months ago and said, "Listen, I think for corporate governance, it's better if you are not on the audit committee." And straight away, I requested Alok that, "Please get me off the audit committee." And I'm off it. All I'm trying to say is we are always trying to do what is right. Sometimes we just may not know what is right or wrong, right?
So that is where we sit from a heart perspective. Sometimes this is the first time we're running a public company, and I'm not very experienced at running these. Now, the second part I wanted to mention was deeply passionate about solving this particular problem of social security for the middle class. There is no other reason we run this company than social security for the middle class. What role we play, whether we are chairman or vice chairman or executive, non-executive, outside the company, inside the company, is just going to keep changing from time to time. But if you tell me something else needs to happen, I'll do that also because our intent is not wrong here. The intent is very clear that India middle class must have social security. And that's the only thing that keeps us kind of going and running to office every day, right?
I don't know, Alok, if you want to add anything.
No, I think you have covered it because we obviously have a choice of doing it outside here. But if you're deciding not to do it outside, but internally, the commercial outcome is not going to be as great if you're doing it outside. There has to be a reason. So you have to look at the intent of the company and the thing that usually drives us. Just think about it. I mean, we moved our ESOPs from a par value to market value last year. There were no specific forces driving us.
But because we heard from the shareholder that that was the right thing to do, so we just did it.
So you'll find multiple times that the value system in the ESOP of the company and the management team, they are very, very aligned with solving for a very large and hard problem and super focused on that. Now, as Yashish said, whether we do it here, there, it doesn't really matter. Till that time, the problem is getting solved. And eventually, yes, PB Fintech and Policybazaar is growing towards that.
Sorry. Any other question, or we're done?
Thank you, Srinath. We'll just take the last question from Rahul Jain . Rahul, please unmute yourself.
Yeah, hi. I hope my line is audible.
Yes.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted to understand, of course, this is in a certain way, but still making an attempt. So is there a way to understand what kind of overall volume or exposure we could help resolve through our new health initiative directly, or indirectly, for us to kind of make that effort?
I didn't understand the question. Honestly, I did not understand the question.
So let me try to rephrase that. So what I'm trying to say is that you explained the why of investing in this PB Health initiative. So I'm just trying to understand because there is a reason which seems pretty fair. But what kind of volume or exposure you could probably directly or indirectly address the problem?
See, I think from a Policybazaar perspective, we have said that the exposure that we as a management would take to the board is between $0-$100 million. The board might shoot it down. The board might say, "No, it's going to be zero," right? We don't know. But at some point, we would like to go to the board once we have an understanding from other partners what we need to do. We would like to take to the board something between $0-$100 million as an investment opportunity, and that's the upper limit of the exposure. All I wanted to clarify is whoever else is the other investors in the entity know that that is the upper limit. I'm saying it here, right, so they can hear it. That's the upper limit of PB Fintech's exposure.
Situations may change in the future, but I don't anticipate any of that, right? Now, the second part, the benefit also we've quantified that we expect a minimum over a 10-year. I don't know, right? We expect some benefit in terms of higher premiums. If you ask us to quantify, yeah, we think we should be able to achieve 5% higher premiums. Now, as I said, whether it's 3% or 7%, we can't really tell. My view is 5% is really underbowling it because it could be much higher. Now, let's see. Let's see what happens. If it happens, and I want to say it's an if, right? It hasn't happened yet. It may not happen, and it may happen.
Is it safer to assume the benefits would be much, much long-ended as this stress factor would get resolved only over a period of time, right?
So I'll explain one very simple thing. If this was a five-year project, there's no point even doing it. This is a very long gestation project. It is at least a 10-year project. And that is the negative of it. Even from a public markets investor's perspective, you may see some benefit, 1%, 2% in the next five years, but you will not see any significant benefit to anybody in the next five years. Now, it may happen sooner, but I think it's a very long gestation period. That's the negative of this project. The positive, it can have a very big impact, very, very material and very big impact. But yes, it's a long gestation project, and it does have upfront investment compared to most others.
Thank you. Appreciate your rigor to solve the insurance problem from every angle possible. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Rahul. I see a lot of people have still raised hands. I would request you to please send your questions at investor.relations@pbfintech.in. We will try to answer them as soon as possible. Thank you all for your time. We'll see you next quarter.