At less than 1%, the level of insurance penetration has continued to be a concern to industry stakeholders. Despite being the giant of Africa, Nigeria has continued to see an unimpressive growth in the industry compared to what is witnessed in South Africa and Kenya.
On this basis, the FSD Africa; a specialist development agency funded by the UK government and working to reduce poverty across sub-Saharan Africa, in partnership with National Insurance Commission, NAICOM organized the BIMALAB insurtech acceleration programme.
The 10-week long programme is designed to support Nigerian insurtech startups that are building innovations in micro-insurance and digital brokerages, B2B data analytics supporting the insurance sector, developing ancillary revenues and insurance add-ons to micro-and small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and SaaS solutions addressing verticals such as agriculture, cyber and climate change.
The programme also saw the participation of 10 insurtechs that are keen on changing the narrative of insurance in Nigeria over the years. Here are the insurtechs that participated in the Bimalab programme.
Izanu Africa
- Izanu Africa is a platform that provides solutions to agricultural risk by leveraging technological tools to democratize access to agricultural solutions and resources including micro insurance in emerging and frontier markets.
- The insurtech is bundling fit-for-purpose warranty policies for farmers especially those at the bottom of the pyramid to increase their resilience to anthropogenic, naturally occurring incidents and increase the livelihood of smallholders as it is believed that access to inclusive and climate-resilient warranty policies by these farmers in Africa especially Nigeria will guarantee food security, strengthen their livelihoods, and bolster relationships with input dealers and producers.
- Izanu’s products include crop warranty which covers smallholder farmers from financial and production losses for various reasons, machinery warranty which provides cover for insured machinery against sudden and unforeseen physical loss/damage, livestock warranty designed to protect livestock from the unexpected and goods in transit to protect farmers who transport goods from one site to another against financial loss during transit.
Insurpass
- Insurpass is an API-driven Insurance-as-a-Service platform built by developers for innovators and organizations. The platform provides everything that is needed to offer digital insurance services to customers – from products, back-end components and insurance back-office modules, all abstracted into a simple API Integration.
- The merchant dashboard – an insurance administration and developer portal – allows users to manage integration into the Insurpass API platform whilst also giving access to real-time policy and claims transaction reports, customers’ details, payment history, API Key, web hook and more.
- With the drive geared towards improving the insurance products by end-users, the insurtech said it is giving insurers access to credible, digital, and on-site channels by connecting insurance with other sectors of the economy. It is also facilitating an ecosystem among insurers, banks, fintech companies, service providers from other industries, and the financially underserved to create incredible opportunities to accelerate insurance inclusion in Africa.
Pay U
- Pay-U is an insurtech platform providing affordable, flexible, cheap and honest pay-as-you-use motor insurance for Africans through building trust, by taking off motor insurance onboarding and claim off human intervention.
- With Pay U, the value of individual car determines how much they pay per minute. Users could pay as low as 70 Kobo per minute and as high as N10 per minute as the minute starts reading once the app is on.
- The platform is designed to solve user’s pain point on pricing, control over onboarding and claim, thereby putting full control over where and when to place a cover on a car in the hands of the users.
Turaco
- Turaco is a micro-insurtech company changing healthcare financing in emerging markets. It is a low-cost insurance provider that designs and delivers simple, affordable insurance to unserved and underserved customers.
- With a vision to insure a billion people within the next 25 years, the platform said it wants to double the number of insured people globally. It also said it is bringing a new model to health and risk financing for emerging customers by offering subscription-based insurance products for the mass market bundled with regular transactions that people are already doing.
- The company recently officially announced its expansion into Nigeria through a corporate partnership with AXA Mansard and Turaco’s Nigerian subsidiary Turaco Inclusive Ltd.
Gamp
- Gamp provides tech support and coverage for damages and losses. It tech device protection plan is a subscription that covers broken phones and computers for as little as N500 per month.
- In addition, it offers protection and repairs for consumer electronics – phone repair and protection, computer repair and protection, AC repair and protection, water dispenser repair and protection etc.
- It operates diverse plans ranging from basic plans which cost as low as N500 with repair coverage up to N80,000, the premium with cost as low as N1500 and covers as low as repair coverage up to N300,000 as well as the pro with cost as low as N6,000 monthly and repair coverage up to N1.2 million.
Arteri
- Arteri is a modern financial and Business infrastructure for African healthcare. The company said it is helping to apply and pre-qualify for health insurance plans and out-of-pocket advances for any procedure.
- For individuals and families, Arteri is been built to help you find the most suitable health coverage plan, simplify the technical details, and do all the paperwork for you. We will also support you in ensuring that you can pay for your health coverage without any stress or financial risk.
- For healthcare providers, it says it is creating access for healthcare providers like hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies to access required financing to improve their services and upgrade necessary equipment at low-interest rates without compromising on workers’ remuneration. With this, it believes that healthcare providers can worry less about patients’ payment for services through our financing mechanisms.
Paddy Cover
- Paddy cover is a pay as you go insurtech that embeds insurance product into your lifestyle and enable you have the flexibility of payment
- With a mission to harness the power of technology and strategic partnerships in creating and effectively distributing impactful insurance products to those most in need of it, the insurtech focuses on adopting and distributing key insurance products like life and health and wellbeing insurance amongst others as a means of building a model of prevention towards risk in addition to strengthening resilience.
- PaddyCover works with established insurers and customer aggregators to design and offer bespoke products via a multi-channel platform that facilitates flexible and convenient payment for insurance packages.
Wellahealth
- Wellahealthcare’s aim is simply to provide accessible, quality health care at a very affordable price for the whole of Africa starting with Nigeria. Its basic plan includes malaria tests and drugs at the closest pharmacy to you, health checks, telemedicine, diet plans, and weekly health tips.
- It recently launched its Wellahealth 2.0 to incorporate a number of new services and experiences in a bid to further its mission to bring healthcare to the door of every African because every African lives matter
- The platform said it is more aware of the power of tech and innovation in making high quality health care more affordable and accessible for Africans
SL DRA
- SL DRA is an insurance data and analytics service company with a primary focus on emerging economies that uses advanced technologies to collect and analyze millions of records and draws on unique domain expertise to provide innovative solutions.
- While it offers analytics and decision-support solutions to members in rate making, underwriting claims, catastrophe and weather risks, it also helps members make decisions about risk, investments, and operations with greater precision, efficiency, and discipline. Overall, the platform says it wants to help members protect people, property, and financial assets.
- The company says it is dedicated to delivering tailored advisory solutions that support speed-to-market, quality underwriting and differentiation as its products and services are complemented by value-added offerings made available through special relationships with associates and partners.
Soso Care
- Soso Care is a micro mobile health insurance startup using innovative approach to bring health insurance to millions of people who never had it before by enabling them to pay for a health insurance with recyclable waste in Nigeria
- The platform is a low-cost health insurtech platform which accepts cash or recyclables as premium to enable millions of people to access care across over 1,000 hospitals in Nigeria.
- SOSO Care was created with the objective of providing a joint solution to 2 development challenges faced by Nigeria and most developing countries; access to health and waste management in rapidly growing urban slums.
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Hello Zainab. I work with Continental Reinsurance Plc and much interested in Insurtech. I would like to know more about these apps and how a Reinsurance company can plug into it.