The GST-led boost to insurance demand appears to be fading, putting the focus back on how Policybazaar can sustain growth once the benefit from lower insurance costs normalises. While PB Fintech reported 41% growth in insurance premium in Q1 FY27, the company is now focusing on creating fresh demand across health and term insurance while building a larger recurring revenue base through renewals. During the Q1 FY27 earnings call, PB Fintech management said demand was strong in Q3 and Q4, but the GST-led boost had already started fading in Q1. The management added that the company would be “lucky” if the trend continued into Q2 and described current insurance demand as “extremely low.” Policybazaar's core new insurance premium continued to grow, but the company is also trying to create demand in underpenetrated categories. Its latest initiatives target customers such as senior citizens, self-employed people, housewives, customers with pre-existing diseases and younger consumers. The company has also launched campaigns aimed at building awareness around health and term insurance. One of the key offsets is renewal income. Renewal and trail revenue rose 38% year-on-year on a rolling 12-month basis to Rs 1,003 crore, giving Policybazaar a larger recurring revenue stream. This becomes increasingly important if fresh insurance demand slows after the GST-related effect fades. PB Fintech's Q1 FY27 insurance premium stood at Rs 8,372 crore, up 41% year-on-year, while protection premium, covering health and term insurance, grew 53%. The company reported Rs 1,888 crore in revenue and Rs 163 crore in PAT for the quarter. The company is also leaning on technology to improve conversion rather than relying only on higher traffic or customer acquisition. During the earnings call, management said Policybazaar processes around 21 lakh calls a day, with calls exceeding 60 seconds processed through AI across seven Indian languages. Its AI systems score more than 65 parameters in real time, while pre-issuance checks include deepfake detection, KYC matching and liveness checks. Beyond insurance, Paisabazaar remains another growth engine. Its loan disbursal annual run rate reached Rs 17,500 crore, with more than 70% of disbursals going to existing customers. The platform is also using its proprietary risk filter to reject around 9% of customers already approved by lenders, targeting a cohort with historically higher early delinquency. The larger question for PB Fintech is whether it can maintain insurance growth once the GST-related demand pull normalises. Based on the company's commentary on the earnings call, its strategy now appears to rely on a combination of renewal income, deeper penetration of health and term insurance, better conversion through AI and cross-selling financial products to its existing customer base. Bareback Media has recently raised funding from a group of investors. Some of the investors may directly or indirectly be involved in a competing busin
