An insurance comparison marketplace is a website or app that shows policies from many insurers side by side, so that you can compare them and buy one. In India it is often called an insurance aggregator, or a web aggregator, the term that IRDAI, the insurance regulator, uses for such sites. Most large marketplaces in India are now licensed as insurance brokers. The products sold most often are motor, health and term life insurance.
For a long time, insurance in India was sold by an agent who visited your home and explained one policy. The page on insurance distribution explains why. A marketplace lets you see many policies at once and decide for yourself.
Here is how it works. You enter a few details, and the marketplace sends them to each partner insurer. Each insurer's insurance core system calculates a price and returns a quote within seconds. The marketplace shows the quotes in one list, with the premium and the main features of each policy.
Say your car insurance in Lucknow is due for renewal. You enter the car's registration number, and the marketplace fetches the car's model and year. It shows quotes from fourteen insurers, from ₹9,200 to ₹13,800 a year. The quotes differ in their add-ons. One common add-on is zero depreciation, which pays the full cost of new parts without a deduction for the age of the old ones. You choose a ₹10,400 policy and pay through a payment gateway. The insurer completes KYC, the identity check, and issues the policy, which arrives by email.
Marketplaces also run large call centres. For health and life insurance, many buyers have questions about waiting periods and exclusions, the things a policy does not cover. So an adviser on the phone often helps to complete the sale. Some digital insurers sell much of their business through marketplaces.
A marketplace differs from an insurance advisory platform. A marketplace shows you many options and earns a commission from the insurer you choose. An advisory platform recommends one or two policies for your situation and explains why.