Turaco, a Kenyan insurtech firm, has spent six years disrupting the underpenetrated insurance coverage market with lower than $2 premiums. Nonetheless, its newest partnership with M-KOPA–a pay-as-you-go financing startup–marks its largest transfer but. By embedding microinsurance into M-KOPA’s smartphone choices, the corporate has guess on a tech-driven strategy to tackling Kenya’s low insurance coverage penetration.
On Tuesday, Turaco informed Techcabal that its embedded insurance coverage providing on M-KOPA’s regionally assembled smartphones has offered protection to over a million clients in Kenya. The achievement follows M-KOPA’s sale of greater than 1.5 million smartphones from its Nairobi meeting plant, which accounted for 20% of all new gadgets bought within the nation in 2024, based on information from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA).
“This product is constructed on our perception that insurance coverage must be accessible, inexpensive, and impactful,” Turaco co-founder Ted Pantone mentioned. “By embedding well being cowl into M-KOPA smartphones, we’ve made medical health insurance accessible to underserved households in a approach that’s easy and simple to make use of.”
Conventional insurance coverage in Kenya has struggled to realize traction, with solely 3.1% of the inhabitants coated outdoors the Social Well being Insurance coverage Fund (SHIF), based on the Insurance coverage Regulatory Authority. Excessive premiums, complicated onboarding processes, and gradual claims processes have saved thousands and thousands uninsured.
Turaco’s growth into M-KOPA’s low-budget smartphones is aimed toward reaching the underserved market, which is comprised primarily of low-income earners and the agricultural inhabitants. The push seems to be working by embedding a free inpatient insurance coverage cowl into smartphones, eliminating tedious insurance coverage sign-ups.
For M-KOPA and its buyers, the deal has been a chance to offer telephones with different monetary options, together with insurance coverage and inexpensive credit score. The guess might be considered one of Kenya’s tech business’s most profitable partnerships.
“By embedding medical health insurance into our smartphones by our “Extra Than a Cellphone” providing, we’ve reworked how on a regular basis earners entry monetary safety,” mentioned Martin Kingori, M-KOPA Kenya normal supervisor.
Kingori mentioned the product was first examined as a canopy for the corporate’s gross sales brokers in Kenya earlier than being rolled out. In response to M-KOPA, the bunding mannequin has proved efficient, as 75% of its clients had been beforehand uninsured. In 2024, 50% of underwriters used their payouts for medical bills, whereas others reinvested the funds in companies or for family wants.
The mixing of insurance coverage into on a regular basis monetary instruments might be the answer to Kenya’s low insurance coverage penetration. In Kenya, Turaco, M-Tek, and Pula Advisors are tech startups which have embedded insurance coverage of their choices to spice up uptake.