The old medical insurance paradigm, which exclusively covers the wealthiest individuals, has failed to effectively cover many African countries’ massive uninsured masses.
According to Ted Pantone, CEO, and co-founder of Nairobi-based InsurTech business Turaco, “the vast majority of the population” in the nations it services, Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria, “doesn’t have insurance.”
He added that this is not due to a lack of insurers, but rather to conventional insurers being “focused on the top five, 10% of the market.” Furthermore, because the typical method relies on brokers selling individual plans, they must provide expensive items in order to generate significant money, he noted.
Turaco has started a transformation of the insurance distribution process by getting rid of the outdated agent-driven sales model to address this issue. Instead, the business uses a partnership-based, digital-first strategy to promote, sell, and deliver insurance plans.
In order to offer insurance products on a business-to-business-to-customer (B2B-B2C) basis, Turaco collaborates with other companies that have a sizable user base, whether those users are clients or workers, according to Pantone.
Banks, mobile network operators, telecommunications firms, microfinance organizations, and gig economy suppliers are some of the company’s partners, but Pantone noted that the fundamental business model could theoretically be extended to “any user base of any business that has an ongoing financial transaction with their users.”
By bundling insurance with current services, these partners may provide “many levels of value,” he noted, including boosting customer loyalty, creating extra money, and improving the general resilience of their clientele.
Pantone highlighted Turaco’s above-50% conversion rate among qualified client pools and “very near to 0%” rate of insurance cancellations to highlight the added value the company generates for organizations.
He continued by saying that the significant demand for insurance throughout the nations and industries that Turaco operates in has kept these levels steady. According to Pantone, “when consumers understand that they can truly buy an insurance policy for $1, $2, or $3 a month,” vast markets are opened up.
