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<p data-start="134" data-end="395"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has imposed a penalty of ₹5 crore on online insurance aggregator Policybazaar for violating multiple provisions of the Insurance Act and the IRDAI (Insurance Web Aggregators) Regulations, 2017.</span></p>
<p data-start="397" data-end="503"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;">According to the order, Policybazaar must remit the penalty amount within 45 days of receiving the notice.</span></p>
<p data-start="505" data-end="922"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The regulator flagged concerns regarding key managerial personnel (KMPs) and employees of Policybazaar allegedly holding directorships in other companies without obtaining prior approval from IRDAI. It noted that several top executives, including the President, Head of Operations, Director General &ndash; Insurance Business, and Business Unit Head, held directorship roles in other entities, contrary to regulatory norms.</span></p>
<p data-start="924" data-end="1176"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Additionally, the company was found guilty of promoting insurance products in a biased manner. The website ranked various insurance products as "top" or "best" without offering supporting material that would allow consumers to make informed decisions.</span></p>
<p data-start="1178" data-end="1336"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Policybazaar later acknowledged its lapse in not seeking the regulator&rsquo;s prior approval and claimed that the current KMPs do not hold directorships elsewhere.</span></p>
<p data-start="1338" data-end="1703"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;">IRDAI also highlighted that, contrary to regulations, the domain name policybazaar.com was not owned by the insurance web aggregator itself but by its holding company. Policybazaar paid a license fee of 5% of its revenue to the holding company for using the domain. Payments of ₹15.51 crore and ₹25.79 crore were made during FY 2018&ndash;19 and FY 2019&ndash;20, respectively.</span></p>
<p data-start="1705" data-end="2128"><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The regulator further noted misleading practices in the listing of insurance products. During inspections, it was found that the website displayed only five Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPs) as "Top 5" despite having tie-ups with several life insurers offering similar products. Likewise, in the health insurance section, only select plans from 12 insurers were featured as "Top plans," suggesting preferential promotion.</span></p>
<p data-start="2130" data-end="2330" data-is-last-node="" data-is-only-node=""><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;">IRDAI concluded that such representations created bias, promoting specific insurers and their products over others, thus violating fair disclosure and comparison practices expected of web aggregators.</span><br><br><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;">[Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by the Benefit News editorial team and is published directly from the IANS news feed]</span></p>
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IRDAI Slaps ₹5 Crore Fine on Policybazaar

Regulator flags conflict of interest, biased product rankings, and domain ownership issues

IRDAI Slaps ₹5 Crore Fine on Policybazaar

Regulator flags conflict of interest, biased product rankings, and domain ownership issues

August 5, 2025 | 01:15 IST