What I’ve Been Doing — Making Health Plans Affordable
What Have I Been Up To?
Many writers will tell you that they find it easier to write about other people than about themselves and what they are doing. But at certain milestones, it is important to pause, breathe, and document what one has been doing.
2017 was a particularly hectic year for me. First, the family grew, little man came. While working full time at Interswitch on a job that required a bit of intra Africa travel, I was also building up our consultancy, SBM Intelligence along with 2 partners. I also finished work on my novel, Afonja The Rise, after 3 years and published the next year, 2018. The same year, I started an MBA program in Lagos Business School. But very importantly, that year was when fear died. I tweeted this at the time.
September 2017, I began to work on what would become CREDEQUiTY, and that is what this post is about. I met my partner in December 2017 and we incorporated in March 2018. In October 2018, the company closed its seed funding and In December, we signed our first customer. I left Interswitch in the same month to run the company full time with my partner.
Meeting A Real Nigerian Need
So, this post is about what we’ve launched this week with that first customer, Hygeia HMO.
Almost daily, we see gofundme requests for health issues. Almost everyone also has one or more people that call them up to ask for support for health bills. Many times, these people are family and dependents like domestic staff. Many SMEs also do not buy plans because of cashflow constraints. A lot has been said about health plans but most of the people who have those plans are employed by corporates who are mandated by law to provide health cover for their staff. These people are the minority; majority of Nigerians don’t have cover. Hence health emergencies or even non-emergency situations continue to be a huge burden.
The number one reason for default on loan repayments in the microfinance space occurs when the payer has to make a choice between repaying the loan and making a health-related payment. A big reason why people do not buy health plans is because they have to pay the full cost for purchasing the plan upfront
Partners
So we’ve partnered with Hygeia to break plans up into monthly payments.
We’ve started with 2 plans –
HyBasic which gives you access to up to N500,000 worth of care annually for N2,950 monthly
HyPrime which gives you access to up to N850,000 worth of care annually for N5,850 monthly
We’ll be bringing more plans and more partners on board as we go, for families, for maternity and for senior citizens.
So How Do You Buy A Plan?
It’s pretty easy. And anyone with a phone number can purchase the plans in 4 easy steps.
Go to https://credequityfront.appspot.com/hygeia
You get a landing page like this
Put in your phone number and your Date of Birth and click on Score Me. Our system match you with a plan and displays the options to you with a summary of how much cover in Naira terms the plan gives you per annum, how much monthly instalments are and how much you pay on the first instalment. Today, you pay 2months instalment to sign up. You can also view and download the details of the plan benefits as well as the Terms & Conditions
Once you accept the Terms & Conditions and choose a plan, put in basic details. You can buy this for yourself or for a beneficiary. Then click on Pay.
The payment page has a summary of your plan and what is due. Supply the details and make the initial payment.
You get a payment successful message
Immediately this is done, Hygeia will send you a welcome email like the one below and this will include your Enrollee ID. That’s all you need to access care in all the Hygeia affiliated hospitals nationwide. There’s a 14Day waiting period before you can start enjoying care.
It’s really that easy. So buy a plan for yourself and for everyone around you — cook, driver, gateman, cleaner, uncle, auntie, sibling. Let’s break this cycle of health emergencies wiping people out.
Here’s the link to get started again
https://credequityfront.appspot.com/hygeia
NB: CREDEQUiTY is only just starting. We have Rent, Insurance, Devices and much more coming. Our mission is to change how Nigerians buy and sell so that people don’t have to wipe out their savings to get these simple goods and services.
So get used to seeing this. There’s a lot more to come.
Find us here http://credequity.com/