Unlocking the Future of Health Insurance

For episode 41, we catch up with Dr. Ikpeme Neto, Founder/CEO of leading InsurTech/HealthTech WellaHealth on their work around solving the challenge of out-of-pocket expenditure for healthcare; a $7b market.

In this episode, we venture into the often challenging terrain of global healthcare delivery, tackling thorny issues like regulation & market accessibility, and delve into how the diaspora could potentially unlock access to quality, affordable healthcare in Nigeria. The discussions don't stop there; we also scrutinize the importance of fostering trust within the insurance industry, and the potential impact of broad-scale education campaigns on changing people's perceptions and understanding of insurance benefits.

Finally, we put the spotlight on the potential game-changer: embedding insurance into products. Dr. Neto enlightens us on the exciting challenges and opportunities that this concept brings, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs for creating bespoke insurance products. We also take a deep dive into how technology can be a game-changer in making insurance accessible, especially in emerging economies. Plus, you won't want to miss our conversation on the role of partnerships in making insurance more accessible and the potential of technology in creating new markets. Take a listen and discover how insurance can be transformed, one innovation at a time.

Join our IBS community on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram

Check out our free resources on InsurTech ecosystem and innovation in the African Insurance space here https://linktr.ee/insurtechbusinessseries

Transcript

Dr. Neto: 0:00

Hi, I'm Dr Neto, Founder and CEO of Wellah ealth. We're working on affordable access to healthcare using technology and alternative care pathways, micro insurance being central to our work. Delighted to be on the chat on InsurTech Business Series, where we talk about some of the stuff we're learning at Wellah ealth and how we can improve insurance adoption across Nigeria and Africa. Enjoy.

Folumy: 0:32

Welcome to the InsurTech Business Series podcast.

Damola: 0:35

I am Folumy and I am Damola and together we host the most exciting podcast on insurance and insurance related topics in Africa.

Damola: 0:45

Stay tuned, and we have a lot of people who are interested in insurance and we're joined by all of the pioneers within the InsurTech/ Health Tech space. We had a conversation with him before yes, in 2020. It was also at our two InsurTech, conferences and it's been, you know, a supporter of the work and being a part of the journey so far, really, and I mean we must say thank you, Dr. Neto, welcome.

Dr. Neto: 1:22

Thank you very much. Always a pleasure to be here and they're well done. They're amazing what you've been doing over the last few years. Thank you so much.

Damola: 1:27

Thank you, thank you very much, thank you. We really appreciate the support. So, before we go into the conversation, how are you, how has it been for you? I know there have been a lot of travels, a lot of things, but personally, how has it been?

Dr. Neto: 1:45

Yes, it's been a very interesting time. You know I feel good, a lot of events and activities and I tell that the industry has come up a lot more, you know. So there's a lot more interest. We've closed a number of you know really good partnerships. You know we've grown adoption and insurance companies are paying claims now.

Dr. Neto: 2:04

So things are, things are looking up, things are looking up, yeah, and not without its challenges, of course. You know, I think you know, in Nigeria, where we work, macroeconomically, we've seen a lot of challenges, but I think even globally, over the last, you know, 12 months, you know things have been difficult. Inflation has gone up. You know costs of doing business along, you know so many different dimensions are increasing and so you know it's been a challenging last couple of years, but there's also been, you know, many good highlights. So, you know, excited to dig into some of them in this chat.

Damola: 2:37

Awesome, awesome. Yeah, it was great. I mentioned claims, but I know that this was a second time of last conversation and even at our first conference in 2020, right, you were just dragging us left, right, center, you know, around the claim. But, yeah, I'm just like you said. I mean, a lot of things has changed, and definitely technology innovation, you know, within the space, looking at 2022 date, I think it has. It has facilitated a lot of these things and I know that you play within the health space and speaking to specifically around technology and innovation.

Damola: 3:12

One of the things that you offer is telemedicine, right, and telemedicine is not yet generally accepted, right, they're still divided the opinions around it. But I wanted to ask, right, because we see that you are facilitating a lot of things how do we run telemedicine and make it work? Right? So I'm going to be dropping a lot of stats today, right, and for this, I was looking at statistics earlier and it mentioned that the revenue for digital health is going to grow about like 26%, up to a 140 million US dollars by the end of 2023. Telemedicine will play a huge role in terms of getting health care to more people, especially in Nigeria. Well, how can we get it right? How are you doing it?

Dr. Neto: 4:09

Yes, thanks, so you know really good question and I get this telemedicine question a fair bit because telemedicine has almost been the post-art child, you know, for you know, health technology in the last few years and especially with COVID coming into play and in-person interactions reducing again, telemedicine, you know it had a big opportunity and we did see a lot of, you know, uptake in actual telemedicine adoption. But as the pandemic has waned and, you know, is almost gone, at least a lot of the responses and interventions are in place. What we've also seen is, you know, the uptake in telemedicine adoption globally. This is, you know, has kind of come down to almost, you know, approximately near pre-pandemic levels and so, you know, starting to have people, you know, think again whether telemedicine is actually solving, you know, the right problems for people Looking locally in Nigeria. You know we do a fair bit of telemedicine.

Dr. Neto: 5:08

But my belief is that, you know, telemedicine is useful, but useful within a suite of services, and so, you know, providing telemedicine standalone, I think you know has its limitations. I think that the way people think about, you know, healthcare access is not just, you know, talking to a doctor on the phone or, you know, using video chats. I think they think of it as you know, the symptoms, the experience and the best route for them to get that care. And when they have a partner that is able to deliver care via a number of channels, then you know they're more likely to adopt that partner, not really the channel. Because, see, the first point of call that we've seen a number of, you know health insurance doing this is your front door can be a telemedicine service, you know.

Dr. Neto: 5:51

So you have an app where you talk to a doctor and then the next step so that's interaction just doesn't end there. The next step is actually something that is in person, so it might be a medication pickup, it might be a lab test, it might be, you know, for the assessment by a doctor, but that whole, you know, end-to-end interaction can happen via the same. You know whether it's partner interface is really important, and so that's where I think telemedicine really, you know, can play a role, is that it is one of a suite of services that people have access to and then you can choose to adopt it and they know there is a feel safe where they can fall back on if you know they don't get the full service on telemedicine. So that's the way I think you know. Personally, my thinking is evolving around it and even the industry is organizing around that idea.

Folumy: 6:39

So I just we don't want to piggyback on what you just said now, because I'm currently in the UK and one of the areas that we've been working on recently has been around telemedicine, and this is because there's been like a major strain on, like the health sector for the UK.

Folumy: 6:55

Right, while I know that the acceptance level is in that great in Nigeria, we haven't gotten to the point where we are able to optimize the use of telemedicine. What would you say are like the biggest challenge in terms of ensuring that people I mean at the first point of core tend to reach out using telemedicine before ultimately going to have like a face-to-face visit or checkup at the hospital, because I want to believe that this, in a way, will sort of reduce the strain on the infrastructure and also in terms of access to quality out-cancers. Anyone and everyone who just really wants to go to the hospital first, that's the first point of contact. Whether it's a minor or major sickness, everybody just wants to have that face-to-face conversation. So how would you think people can encourage the use of telemedicine?

Dr. Neto: 7:48

So very true.

Dr. Neto: 7:49

A lot of it is very habitual and if you look at health systems that have been relatively successful with telemedicine adoption, you find that it's embedded into how they do usual and general practice. So I'm aware that in the NHS in Scotland, for instance, in many of the services there they've had a steady uptake in telemedicine adoption, even pre-pandemic. And when pandemic came they saw a lot of growth and that growth is persistent and that's because they were very much set up to take advantage of that. They had the infrastructure in place, they had the awareness in place, they had a way to refer people to a telemedicine service if they went into their usual general practitioner and so it was really embedded in how they thought about delivering care. And I think as well in systems where you can't get into a GP very easily, it's not so much in Nigeria. Nigeria is relatively easy to walk into a clinic and get an appointment or see a doctor or see somebody. Anyway. It's not that easy in the NHS. I know a number of people that have moved and when I talk to them they complain, say how do you see a doctor? And they say I should come back in a week or two weeks time. So it's very jarring for people. So in a system like that, telemedicine provides a greater alternative, because if you call to book an appointment, they say okay, how about you use this telemedicine service? So you can see how that solves the problem and if they have infrastructure in place, they're promoting it.

Dr. Neto: 9:15

You can see how that adoption works In our own market or in our own jurisdiction, where you have that relative ease of access, where you can walk in and just go to a clinic as long as you have money in your pocket. I mean this is a caveat, of course If you have money in your pocket, you can walk into a clinic and relatively easily see a general practitioner. So in that instance then I think it's always going to be challenging to get adoption, because you've got to then try to convince the average clinic on the streets to turn people away when they present and turn them to a telemedicine service. I mean you struggle to find any clinic or doctor that will be willing to do that, because if a patient in front of him that's willing to pay, he's not going to turn them away, whereas in the alternate example in the UK, for instance, that's what they do. You can see how adoption is going to be different.

Dr. Neto: 10:10

So where we have that relative ease of access and where there isn't ease of access so usually where you now have the cues are when you go to public hospitals. So when you go into a specialist, for instance, or you go to a public hospital where it's cheaper, then you have hordes and hordes of people just waiting. What is the incentive there for the doctor or the practitioner to then switch over to telemedicine? I think it's very challenging, it's limiting, because you don't have the physical interaction. You have to wrangle with the devices, the internet, the voice, like the experiences in that ideal hordes of times. It's just easier to just see your patients in clinic and you now ask yourself what is the business model as well for the public institution, for charging for that?

Dr. Neto: 11:00

So it can be very difficult and complex and adoption can be challenging, and so I think that in the near future anyway, you will not see that significant adoption unless there's a huge awareness and huge push and a lot of people across the board to make it happen. But I wonder whether that effort is better spent in other things. So I think, like I said, it's great as part of the suite of services, but I don't think it will become the bulk or the habits for people just because we still have that. Access is still a person and people like it yeah.

Folumy: 11:37

I want to talk about the cross-functional activity not cross-functional but cross-border.

Folumy: 11:42

To start with, what you mentioned about people having access back home in Nigeria I mean, one of the major things that are shown over a period of time, or that I've seen over a period of time, has been the fact that see, for instance, people that left or that moved away from the country and are trying to then gain access back to maybe their previous doctors and they would want to access healthcare. But what I'm trying to push now is in terms of a better use of this platform and integrating them with the current infrastructure. So this is not just for, maybe, the African continent of Nigeria alone, but then looking at it holistically, from cross-border. So somebody in the US who wants to have access to maybe somebody in Nigeria, to drop down in Nigeria, those are some of the sort of use case that I'm trying to wrap my head around. So do you think that those are some of the possible adoption to the medicine? Because we're beginning to see that as well. But again, like you said, we've not seen people fully embrace and tell medicine.

Dr. Neto: 12:55

Yes, I think the challenge, the main challenge, across border utilization is the regulatory bit, because the fact that I'm licensed in Nigeria doesn't mean I'm licensed in the UK and vice versa. So I think the licensing is a problem. And if you look at the US, where they have state licenses, what the telemedicine companies do is they actually go and get doctors in each state or they have doctors that have licenses for each state, which adds a level of complexity. So I think the regulatory bit makes that difficult and even if you surmount that, there's just a market size and a market access and awareness problem that I think is very challenging to overcome and will be expensive to actually reach the kind of customers or clients that you need to make it worthwhile. So again, on paper might make sense, but I think in practice it will be very challenging.

Damola: 13:43

Looking at it from the diaspora point of view, right, and how they can help to facilitate access to quality and affordable care, even to their loved ones back home in Nigeria. Right, this is one use case that I think that is underused or not very much exploited. What are your thoughts around creating solutions, around people in the diaspora being able to buy healthcare cover for their loved ones here in Nigeria and scaling that really? Because, yes, we send money home for different reasons, chief of it to be healthcare if that's accurate or not right but I think that's being able to provide that direct healthcare cover. So Mama just needs to go into the hospital, get treated and go home. You don't need to make any payment. That's one use case that I'm saying, but from your point of view, from your experience, what do you think about this?

Dr. Neto: 14:44

The diaspora opportunity is becoming more and more apparent to me and in Nigeria in the first quarter of the year there was a huge problem around cash availability because the central bank tried its demonetization and we saw people really struggle to get access to cash. People had really poor health experiences and in fact there were some deaths as a result of a cash shortage. And I was chatting to a number of friends abroad and they were talking of how there's no point even sending money to Nigeria because when they send money their families can't use it. And they got me thinking that actually what I helped is set up to enable that family member who they need to access that healthcare without the need for cash at the point of care. So rather than having their family member take that money remittance out as cash and pay, say, doctor, buy drugs and pharmacy, we can facilitate that and we can take the payment from the family member in the diaspora. So that got us thinking and we recently launched a product around that.

Dr. Neto: 15:51

But then when I looked at the numbers, it's actually pretty impressive, depending on who you believe, of course, but the estimates for the United Nations that Nigerians send about $23 billion home annually and I mean that's as much as we. That's like a second FDI earner. We end this like anymore from oil. So, as it turns out, nigeria's biggest export is its people. You know. So a lot of money is sent back, and if you look at Nigeria Barrier Statistics, you know they do this surveys and about 5% of remittances is spent on healthcare, and so when you do the numbers, it's about a billion dollars a year that is spent on healthcare from people in the diaspora. So that's a massive market opportunity and it's apparent to me that you know there there needs to be a concerted and defined efforts to try and organize some of that capital to just improve access in.

Dr. Neto: 16:46

Nigeria. So that's what we're working on, so I'm a big believer that you know what's. The diaspora is actually a good market to help them organize the healthcare spending so that people back home really get good access to.

Damola: 16:56

Definitely interesting and I like the point that you made around intentionally organizing that to make it work, because, yes, I know that there are a number of players trying things in that space well, like health inclusive but how can we have a conscious and dedicated effort towards making it work? I want us to go back a bit right From our previous conversation. The goal for Wellah ealth is to solve the challenge of out-of-pocket expenditure. This is estimated to be about $7 billion being spent. How has that journey been for Wellah ealth?

Dr. Neto: 17:33

Well, we don't have $7 billion yet and I don't know if that's what you're asking. I mean, I've always known that it's a long-term journey, because the biggest challenges and we knew this early on the biggest challenges we face are around education and trust, and so the fact that the market exists, so people are spending money, doesn't mean they'll spend it with you, because, first of all, in who are you? Why would they give you money? Because we know the Nigerian society is very low trust and low integrity, unfortunately. So trust is a huge barrier to overcome and it's expensive to overcome. Related to that, of course, is education Is educating people that this out-of-pocket expenditure that you have, there are more efficient ways to spend it, and that also takes a good bit of work Because, as we know, the trust for an understanding of insurance in Nigeria isn't really that high. So you have to then spend a good bit of time and effort in educating people, and so I've always known that it would take a bit of time and it also be expensive.

Dr. Neto: 18:34

What I think the industry hasn't been great at and correct me if I'm wrong I don't feel like there's been a concerted effort to build that trust and education across the board in the market. I think that insurers and insured texts and everybody in this space should come together and really work on improving the general awareness and trust and the idea that in a rising tide lifts all boats. We need to subscribe to that so that we don't have all this pockets of energies and what's going on. Yes, they can, but can we collaborate a bit more on a high level to really fund huge awareness campaigns, huge marketing campaigns that lets people know and understand that insurance is the way to go, not just for health care but, I think, across the board, build some of that trust and then from there, when the market is a lot bigger, there's more awareness, the individual companies can come in and maybe start competing. But I think there's a lot of work still to be done to build that education and trust.

Folumy: 20:00

Again, we've always had conversations around communication on marketing and advertising, the awareness that you just talked about. But from some of the market surveys that's been done and some of the interactions that we've had with people that are in the non-insurance sector, I've been the fact that there's still that trust issue that they can give their money to an insurance person because they feel that when it's gone or that they will not be able to utilize the money. So do you think it's the point of when it's now, or it should be a point of actually changing the direction of how we communicate to the people that we're trying to reach?

Dr. Neto: 20:37

Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of work on the how I think so, for instance. This is why I've always spoken about paying claims in industry, because actually the best story you can tell about insurance is to show people that it works. We can talk from now until the cows come home. But if we don't have lots of people that are saying, yeah, so I'm using insurance, so I went to claim well, they paid me, they didn't stress me out, that's the way, that's the proof of their putting.

Dr. Neto: 21:07

So I think that we haven't done a great job at talking about the success of insurance in people's lives. Life insurance, for instance. I mean the difference that makes to somebody if a great story will be it stay at home more, for instance. Or a housewife with three kids, her husband is well off, he's providing for the family and everything is going well, and he dies suddenly. We know how disastrous that can be. That can push your family into poverty. But if life insurance pays out, that makes a massive difference. Have you ever heard a story like that on TV anywhere? No, not exactly no, but I'm pretty sure it happens. We're not all the time, but I'm pretty sure there's at least one person in Nigeria that has happened to, but nobody has put that window on TV to tell her story.

Damola: 22:02

I think there's a lot also to it, right, because that widow, for example, doesn't want to be out there, so that family members will not come and say she now has money.

Dr. Neto: 22:14

Well, I mean, you won't say that you paid her 20 million dollars, you know no.

Folumy: 22:18

But then a lot of people are quite aggressive when it comes to testimony. I saw a post recently on Twitter saying that everybody complains that they don't trust insurance, but when they pick limbs there's nobody in Nigeria that would come forward to say I've been picked limbs or I have money now, but before then you just hear a lot of comments on it, say insurance companies are dubious and when people finally get their claims paid they then go mute. We don't hear these things anymore yeah.

Dr. Neto: 22:49

Yes, you're right and we've seen that ourselves, you know. But we actively ask people. I wonder how my insurance insurance companies actively do this. I mean, the truth is it's a game of numbers. If you ask everybody, one person will eventually agree. That's just the way. But if you don't ask, if you ask one person and they say no, I say we're not going to do it, then we're never going to know. I think that, as a matter of course, everybody gets it claimed, paid out, should be asked would you be willing to do this for us? And honestly, you ask 100 people, you get that.

Damola: 23:21

So I'm wondering can partnerships work? And so partnerships in the sense that so, for example, insurers are partnering with Wellah ealth, right? So Wellah ealth is tech focused and they are customer facing and they are able to get these testimonials, for example, provide that kind of guidance to people OK, this is what insurance is, so this is what they can benefit from it, right? Can partnerships work in that light? Because maybe insurance companies are not equipped today to do all of that, but maybe extending their abilities through some of these kind of partnerships perhaps can be a way.

Dr. Neto: 23:59

haven't got any mean I insurance companies has come to me and said please give us two or three people that we can put on the billboard that says paid my claim, go and get insurance. So we still have to do that work and then go and sell it to the insurance companies. That this is the. I think the strategy has to also be. There has to be a belief in that strategy from the insurance company so that we're working together, so that it's almost like the marketing from there says you know what? This is a definite strategy. We already have the. We just need the people to put on them. Then it makes life easy for me when I go to find the person, as opposed to going to find that person to tell a story and then I have to still pitch that story then to insurance company. You know like life is hard for everybody.

Dr. Neto: 24:41

Yes, so I think that insurance companies with big budgets should have this as a marketing strategy and then approach us, their partners, to say let's find two or three people for us. We can tell a good story, have a campaign, put it on billboards, put it on TV, put it on radio. Honestly, do that a couple of times. And now we have a reference point because when we go to sell, what I say is you don't see that adverse, look at that adverse Insurance? They pay insurance points. There's no reference points and people tell us this we have hundreds of agents in the market. People say I must see you around. We don't have a reference point for you. I would like my agents to be able to say look outside the market, see that billboard. That's our partner that paid that claim. I can tell you it would be your claim. So I think that you know marketing teams and insurance companies should look at this seriously and see. You know how do we tell those stories that make people believe that these things happen?

Folumy: 25:35

Okay. So for the marketing, I think, individually, the insurance company or some insurance company tries to at least change the narrative. Well, you mentioned earlier in this session was the fact that we all need to come together and do that, because it doesn't seem like the weights one man is carrying or one insurance company is carrying is actually changing the narrative. It just seems like people just know that insurance companies are saying, okay, they've come with their adverts again. But I mean, if it comes, you know, from a wider range, like with collaborative efforts from different parts of the insurance industry, I think that that would, you know, sort of cost, like a major impact. Then you know, just one person trying as much as possible to maybe create as many adverts as they can or marketing campaign and trying to see how they can, you know, change the narrative. But then, for instance, if it was AXA months at is still just going to be, axa months at is not going to be.

Folumy: 26:30

That the industry has, you know, a whole sort of changes that narrative in Nigeria, I want to assume, to be away from communication. In terms of claims payments, do you also see a challenge with the fact that people are not willing to pay for insurance because there's no flexibility in payment. I know that that's what Wellahealth does. You know, by helping to unborn do products, say, for instance, now we're starting with the malaria insurance, you know, just making it affordable for, like, the average person on the street. Do you think that that has been effective in terms of compression and, you know, bringing people into the insurance space?

Dr. Neto: 27:10

And my thinking is evolving and it's not evolving story. We're still collecting data on this. I think that, to be honest, it is challenging to get people to part with, you know, a regular premium payment without getting a service in return regularly, you know, and the market hasn't evolved yet to that place. And so I think that you know, unbornly unbornly is certainly a what is certainly one way to start a conversation on bonding also in a way that they are able to experience something outside of, say, a claim, right. So I mean the perfect insurer goal.

Dr. Neto: 27:47

You know, episode is something that is rare, but it's significant, right. So I mean that's why Lyla is a great product, at least from the insurance point of view, but you only lose your life once, or you know, whoever has that you know product only loses their life once, and you know it may not happen for years, may not happen at all, and we know that a lot of times, actually, the most life products that we sell in the industry are either mandatory products or embedded products, you know. So things like credit life or group life In voluntary life I don't know that, I've not seen the data, but I'd be very surprised if it's up to. You know 30% of premiums? Do you know what it is at all?

Folumy: 28:25

I wouldn't necessarily say voluntary, I would say it's a mixture because, again, what we do back home is it's a mixture of investments in voluntary life, so that people don't come back and say I did not die, I did not get my money back. So we don't try to do voluntary life like expressively, it has to come with something which is largely investment.

Dr. Neto: 28:46

Okay. So making the point exactly that the idea that I pay premium and I didn't say so far the event and I'm getting nothing back, I know this is a scam, and so I think that's really where you know the industry needs to figure a way to serve people but still, obviously, you know, make it a profitable venture for the companies. And so I think combining is one way, so that people have kind of smaller events that potentially they're more likely to claim from. But then going beyond that is thinking about how do we then embed it into something else. I think that the story about embedding is still evolving, but I think that ultimately that's what we as industry have to figure out is how to embed insurance so that the service it's embedded with becomes the regular experience, right, and then the insurance is now the extra benefits.

Damola: 29:40

Yeah, absolutely I agree with you. Embedded insurance, I think would shape the future.

Dr. Neto: 29:47

It's too difficult to dummy. Let me jump in. It's not. When we say embedded, I don't like. The reason I'd like to really say and you know, pin my my flag to embedded is that it's one thing to embed is another thing to be successful with an embed. So the devil is in detail. So not just embed it with a couple of embedding, but thinking deeply about the value of what it is that insurance brings to that product.

Dr. Neto: 30:11

Yeah, because we've done this ourselves and you know I have learned is that it's one thing to just embed, and so if you buy this and you get insurance, but how does that play in the mind of the customer? Are they looking at the product as one, in that the experience from this product is part of the experience of insurance? I don't know if that makes sense. I think that sometimes are very removed. For example, if we embed insurance with buying a bag of flour, how do we get people to understand or feel that every time they use their flour to bake bread, they are consuming the insurance? They're not consuming flour, they're not consuming bread, they're consuming insurance. So I think that's where the embedding has to get to, so that it's now looks like actually the flour is part of the insurance Not that I bought flour and then insurance is something on the side, but like a real and true deep embed. I don't think that we as industry have figured that out. I think all of our embeds are very superficial, at least in my experience.

Damola: 31:14

I think it's a journey right. I mean all of these things really just pumped up post COVID. Honestly, the industry has grown. The space has grown. Embedded insurance we see a lot of people playing within that space. We've seen a lot of partnerships in short texts and insurers doing things differently and seeing how basically train things on the wall and seeing which sticks yes. So it's interesting and it would be interesting to hear about some of the partnerships that Wellah ealth has done in the, at least since when we last spoke. I know that you've done a lot of partnerships. There was Beema Lab as well. Since then, I mean, just tell us.

Dr. Neto: 31:58

Yes. So partnership we've done a number, I think probably the biggest one is one with Stanbic Bank. So we've got a partnership with Stanbic where when you sign on to their mobile money wallet, you get health insurance and are are able to upsell people on that channel over at that channel. We also have a partnership with Verve, so with a Verve card you can get insurance plan at significant discounts when you buy using your Verve card. So we have those two. Those two are in really big partnerships that took a lot of effort to put through and we've seen decent uptake following those partnerships, but still a lot more work to be done. I think that signing a partnership is one hard bit. Getting a partnership to work is the second hard bit just as hard, if not harder than the initial partnership.

Dr. Neto: 32:46

We've also had a couple of partnerships with MFIs. I think MFI's provide a good opportunity, so microfinance banks provide a good opportunity to really get things going and a few FinTech apps. So we've got this partnership with Reprite, like a new bank and savings app where when you open an account, they actually provide you with some of our health benefits. And then finally I think we just launched this with KIPA. Kipa is a FinTech that provides a merchant's tools and financing for merchants, so people that buy fast moving consumer goods. These guys provide them with invoicing, pos, those types of services, and then we've embedded some insurance into them. So we've got 3,000 of their merchants using our insurance plans and we go to have way more. I think some progress, but still a lot more work to be done.

Damola: 33:40

So for me, I'm looking at the SME space, the gig workers space. How do we get these guys to buy insurance, not because we want to sell insurance, but they actually need insurance.

Folumy: 33:54

We do need it.

Damola: 33:55

Yes, so it was interesting when you talked about that partnership. What are your thoughts around what we need to do in order to better serve this market? Is it flexible, premium, flexible product or, you know, really just designing something different? Because it's a news, it's a different space, different way of life, different thinking, different mindset. The pocket strength also is not the same with the one that was used to design insurance products that exist today.

Dr. Neto: 34:26

Absolutely, and I think you've hit the nail on the head, is that you know, for these types of you know new opportunities, it's really put on a you know customer discovery and product hat and go into the trenches and you know, work with, you know the partners and the actual people there to figure out what are the risks they are most worried about. I think that's the key thing, and people people don't buy insurance, right, they buy that you know risk protection, I guess. Is that okay? Is it fire? Is it you know theft? Is it you know what? Is it Lots of income.

Dr. Neto: 34:58

You know what is it that I'm most concerned about as a small, you know merchant, small business owner and I think, understanding that and understanding how they think about it, understanding their own cash flow, to also understand collect payments and designing products and premium collection around that process I don't think that we've done the work. I mean I even say this ourselves. You know we've obviously done some partnerships there, but I don't think that we have the best product yet. What we've been doing is shoehorning our current products into that space. But I think that the real you know winners there will be people that you know, really, you know, put on their t-shirt and jeans, enter the market, sweat a bit with these guys, understand what they're going through and then come and design very good products and speak to them and then you'll see the update will be significant.

Dr. Neto: 35:44

I think that actually the biggest opportunities around this kind of small business insurance, because they literally have no insurance. You know, we work with 2,000 small businesses and we've done the service. They have no insurance and they have significant risks. You know, we've got people with inventory of, you know, two, five, 10 million Naira and there's zero insurance there. You know.

Folumy: 36:07

I think it's a big opportunity.

Dr. Neto: 36:08

I don't know that anybody is really focused on it yet.

Damola: 36:12

I think partnerships again I mean maybe because I work within partnerships, I'm a big proponent for that right. So I think that partnerships can definitely extend the reach of insurance companies. Right and I think that's why I'm talking with the likes of, you know, Wellah ealth to reach markets that they've not been able to, and beyond just providing the current insurance pros, how can they work with those partners, for example, to design new products? Yes, I think it is.

Dr. Neto: 36:41

I think. I think, Dammy, I think the problem with the partnerships is the partnerships arms-length are partnerships. I mean you work in partnerships. I think the way that partnerships really work is if you enter the streets with me. I think sometimes it's too abstract because when we try to have this conversation and describe things it doesn't really hit home. But you know, enter the streets with me for a few days. You need to click instantly Like, okay, I see where you're coming from and then you can take that first hand learning to go and you know, figure out how to put it within the. You know the constraints of cost, that you have an insurance side. But I think that you know it's not enough to just, you know, do zoom calls, have air-conditioned in offices and talk about partnerships.

Dr. Neto: 37:21

I think the partnership is bros, come with me, make a new market. Let's see how this thing is working. You know, not to sell, but to really understand, yes, and when we understand, then we can now build the right product for people.

Folumy: 37:34

Okay, before we start talking about, you know, building products. Do you think that? I mean, judging by the fact that you've said now that partnership is practicing Do you think that this might be? I mean, before we put the product out, we might have to evaluate the infrastructure, and you know flexibility of having to remove some of our business strategy to fit into the current market changes. I mean, technology is changing, people are, consumer behavior is changing. You know some of the market findings that you currently have as well. I'm sure they were really not there before, and then you know because it had evolved over time, but then we still have infrastructures in place that are still catering to the traditional, previous ways of insurance. Do you think that this might be like the first aspect to review before we then start to design products that would then that would be best suited for this market segment?

Dr. Neto: 38:33

So I think it's a bit of chicken and egg.

Dr. Neto: 38:35

You know, I think that it's hard to know you know how you're redesigning your existing systems If you don't go out and you know, find out what you need to redesign it for. But then again, you know, if you don't redesign, maybe you can't really go out and do it the right way. So I think on a level there's a bit of a chicken and egg problem there. But I would say that you know, going out and figuring out what it is that's out there is probably the way to go to inform the changes we need to make, because I think there are a lot of changes we need to make.

Dr. Neto: 39:01

I think you know insurance and I've said this number of times has been very much built in Nigeria for the big corporate. You know production, where insurance companies have made their money, and so it's a very different way of thinking when you're trying to do kind of small businesses, you know because which are big corporate. You know you wear a suit and tie, get into a condition with small businesses. You wear a T-shirt and jeans that you go and sweat in the markets. So the people you hired for the AC and suits is not the same people that you hire for you know sweat on the streets and also it takes a bit of time. You know with one.

Dr. Neto: 39:30

You know big business you close, you know it's what's? 100 million Naira in premium. You know everybody's happy, the bonuses are good. But with the small business, you know to get 100 million Naira in premium, you know can take a bit of work but once you get it right that grows almost indefinitely to, you know, billions of Naira in premium. So I think again it's a strategy thing. Like we said, the marketing and the storytelling. It has to be strategy. But also with this product and market development there also has to be strategy from the top that says we believe that the future is in small businesses. We know that's where the opportunity and market is. We're going to do the work and make the investment to figure it out. You know long term. So I think when the insurance companies have that as central to their strategies, then perhaps we'll start investing long term in the work that needs to be done to get us to improving their systems for making this work.

Damola: 40:16

Absolutely. What does the future hold for Wellah ealth? And then also, like all the insurance, innovation and technology space?

Dr. Neto: 40:24

I'm very bullish, I'm an entrepreneur, so by definition I'm very. You know, if I was optimistic I wouldn't start a business.

Dr. Neto: 40:31

So, I'm very bullish. I think that the only way is up, and that's the advantage, I guess, of being in a market where the penetration is low. It means that we can only get better and I think that the ingredients are coming into place. What I just wish is there should be a bit more acceleration, a bit more understanding that we are early days and so you know things will not be right. You know some of the numbers will not make sense, Some of the things will not add up, but believing that if we are to make the progress we need to make, we need to be patient and, you know, invest. So I'm very optimistic.

Dr. Neto: 41:03

Like I said, I think that lots of opportunity, there's more capital coming in, there's a good bit of startups around. The enterprises as well are open to partnerships. You know, we've seen, like I said, it's an act. So I have done some things together. We've got something with Stanbic, I think MTN coming into the space. So there's a lot going on and I'm very excited to have some more of this actually crystallizing to real progress.

Damola: 41:27

Yeah, and you want Wellah ealth to be in the middle of it.

Dr. Neto: 41:31

Oh, absolutely as far as the health care goes yes, I think we're not too true to our home, but we're the best partners as far as delivery health care services really affordably goes. We work with over 30 partners. We manage tens of thousands of patients every month. We have a lot of experience. We've built really great technology, you know. So, I think, by the partner of choice as far as health care goes. So use Wellah ealth.

Folumy: 41:55

I think before we go to questions that we need to ask, you know that there's a big like to assume that there's currently technology disruption. We just wanted to know what your advice would be, especially now. It hasn't really been disruptive in the African continent, but what we did see about using that to the advantage of the majority of the health sector. So I'm going to start your back.

Dr. Neto: 42:19

Yes, so great question. And so, first of all, I don't use the word disruption actually, when it comes to, you know, africa, and the reason is, is that there's nothing to disrupt. What's the batting with? And if you look at the original of that, you know idea of disruption. Professor Christensen, he actually wrote a book focused on your markets, like Africa, and it talks of non consumption, right, market creation. Yeah, so actually that is what technology affords us in emerging economies that really haven't been participating in markets like this is. With technology, it reduces the barrier and cost for creating markets and for actually helping people pull in products into their lives. And so now, for instance, you know something like over 90% of our customers never had insurance before, and in fact, you know in that book on market creation that is the prosperity paradox, micro and sure is a is a specific example they use. And on how you know a market creating innovation using technology, can you know, enable people to pull in products that make a difference in their lives.

Dr. Neto: 43:23

So I think the model is really using technology to create markets and using business models based on technology to create new markets that can really, you know, revolutionize access.

Damola: 43:35

Protection gap across the world. I was looking at one of the posts from Simon Torrance recently and he puts that at about $7 trillion and if you look at Africa, insurance penetration is about 3%. In Nigeria is less than 1%, maybe around 0.5% or 0.4%, whoever is counting. So, yes, the opportunities that the gap is there. How are we using technology innovation to remodel our products and how we view customers and better serve them? It's an interesting time. We're super excited about what's happening within the space. Yes, it's early days. We are growing, but again, the idea around our podcast, our webinars, conferences as well, is how can we learn from others and also take those learnings to build what we are building so we don't repeat their mistakes? Also, understanding that the African market is peculiar. It's different. I know that recently you opened up shop in Akwa Ibom . What's happening there? What do we be expecting next?

Dr. Neto: 44:38

Yeah, so that is two-fold strategy wise. One is working with state governments. So we wanted to work with a progressive state government that's looking at health insurance, in particular, adoption, and you know Nigeria recently passed it's probably a year now so it's no longer that recent but a year ago Nigeria passed the new Health Insurance Act and that act put state health insurance schemes at the core of how health is going to be delivered, and so that office in Akwa Ibom state helps us to start to do state health insurance work across the south side and even the south side. That was the strategy there. So you see us a lot more work with the government.

Dr. Neto: 45:17

And the second thing was really actually helping us to grow out our customer service operations. So we found that growing a lot of people and, as you know, Abuja and Lagos can be quite expensive, so to keep our costs low, we thought that would be a great second office location for us. So those are the two things that led us to do that and, surprisingly, actually part of the reason why we chose a quiet coincidentally I'm from there, but that's not the reason Coincidentally Coincidentally.

Dr. Neto: 45:51

But the reason is a Akwa Ibom is a more successful state. Wow, okay, yes, you know we had quite a lot of interest there and, you know, did a lot of good numbers in Akwa Ibom state and we had some people there as well that we could build our office on top of. So that's the reason that we went there in the end.

Damola: 46:08

Okay, I mean interesting. You said that because a lot of people are targeting Lagos, lagos, maybe you're going to a bad number, but in the West, right, you say you're doing stuff at a quiet bomb Because, again, nigeria is huge, right, the opportunity is Nigerian, not Lagos. Perhaps, maybe it is the way that we are looking at it as well, because those in the South, in the North, they actually need these services. Perhaps we are not so in terms of the success in that space, is it a thing of culture? Is it language?

Dr. Neto: 46:43

So yeah, very good point. I think there's a number of reasons. I mean culture, of course, being one of them. For instance, in the North you struggle to sell insurance if you go to the North because of the culture there. But I think that very simply, you know, without kind of doing too much of an analysis, it's actually cheaper Because, if you think about it, the noise in Lagos for you to cut through that noise, for anybody to pay attention to you, it's so challenging. If I want to buy a spot on radio, you can imagine what you'd cost me. If I want to buy a billboard you know it's significant again Whereas I can go to a smaller state, somewhere in the South, southeast, even in the North Central, and buy out all the billboards in the town for less than one billboard in Lagos.

Dr. Neto: 47:31

And I'm doing low-cost plans. So why would I go, spend a lot of money buying ads or getting a share of money in Lagos and Abuja when I can go for a fraction of the cost to get a share of money in a smaller state and still do quite well? So, especially like a small company like ours, starting off with something that's a bit challenging, the smaller states can be a good ground, better place for us to experiment and then, when we get successful, we can now come to Lagos and start to fight with big amounts Interesting.

Folumy: 48:00

Thank you for your good work and also for coming on our podcast. I mean it's been an interesting conversation, especially around insurance penetration, telemedicine, as well as the infrastructures that we need to put in place to ensure that we're able to get this product to people. So I want to say a very big thank you and, before we go off, I would like to ask, on behalf of our audience, how they can reach out to you. All right, thanks.

Dr. Neto: 48:27

Always a pleasure jumping on a conversation. So LinkedIn, I think, is a great way to look at the updates on whether I help any official stuff, and then for the kind of more unofficial, informal and troublesome side, you can follow me on Twitter, so on

Dr. Neto: 48:43

I'm Doc neto, Doc NETO , but here on LinkedIn Ikpeme Neto , so depends on the flavor you want, you choose the channel. Thank you .

Damola: 48:54

Awesome I mean thank you very much. It's been a pleasure speaking with you, Really appreciate you coming on and sharing as much as you did.

Dr. Neto: 49:00

Absolutely. Thank you so much, it was a pleasure .

Damola: 49:05

And I hope you did enjoy that conversation. I hope you had an interesting one. Do ensure that you continue to listen to our podcast and share as well with your colleagues and friends future episodes and even previous ones, on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, on every platform that you get your podcast Right.

Folumy: 49:26

And also don't forget to join the conversation on all of our social media platforms. We might have comments, reviews, as well as questions. Please do share on our LinkedIn page or on our Twitter page, as well as remember to follow us.