SOSO CARE

With pervasive poverty, poor healthcare financing and high maternal mortality, less than 3% of Nigeria’s 200 million population have health insurance as it is considered an expensive luxury. Again, Nigeria generates over 34 million tons of waste yearly and about 20 billion PET bottles causing poor sanitation, poor healthcare and affecting the environment

SOSO CARE is a social enterprise low cost insurtech which aims to use recyclable garbage as a financial resource enabling millions of uninsured informal sector, slum dwellers including pregnant women and kids to access micro health insurance across 1170 hospitals.

 By linking garbage to healthcare we are killing 2 birds with 1 stone in addressing poor healthcare and environmental sustainability.  

We are targeting over 40% of 200 million people in Nigeria in informal sector as well as many living below poverty in urban slums and suburbs including women and kids to enable health inclusion.

Social exclusion means over 100 million Nigerians do not have a health insurance. According a PWC report less than 3% of Nigerians 200 million population have health insurance (PWC). With almost 90% relying on out of pocket to finance their health needs, this leads to poor health choices like self medication and use of traditional birth attendants leading to higher mortality with 55,000 women losing their lives to pregnancy and child birth yearly.

Again, lower literacy rate, trust and poverty makes millions of people in the informal sector consider insurance as an expensive luxury. This social exclusion and safety net exposes the weakness and vulnerability of the millions of people to catastrophic health financing which continues to push people into poverty. 

At SOSO CARE, our goal is to leverage on technology to ensure last mile health inclusion through alternative forms of financing health needs for everyone. 

We are targeting over 40% of 200 million people in Nigeria’s informal sector as well as many living below poverty in urban slums and suburbs including women and kids at the Bottom of the pyramid. We plan to reach new customers by expanding into new cities, states where millions live in desperate poverty with poor health outcome. 

By linking garbage to healthcare access we are killing 2 birds with 1 stone in addressing poor healthcare access, sanitation and environmental sustainability.  

To measure impact we use and be using data, feedback from interviews and reviews of present and potential customers.

As SOSO CARE business model is scalable and replicable as we have tested in over 4 states and cities. in the next 6 months with grant and funding we plan to move to Lagos with a population of over 25 million with about 70% operating in the informal sector, including the poor in slums and suburbs. This market alone will offer us 3 million people within 8 months.

Health inclusion which help to reduce higher burden of will continue to use awareness marketing and advocacy to change the narrative of low health insurance penetration and communicate the importance of health inclusion. 

Part of the goal of Mission Billion challenge WURI for West Africa is to find  sustainable solutions that guarantee social protection including health insurance for millions of vulnerable population at the informal sector. 

By leveraging on technology to improve health insurance, Our goal at SOSO CARE is to ensure last mile health inclusion through flexible payment plan that will enable people to get a low cost health insurance as protection against any health challenge that would push them into catastrophic health financing and poverty.    

This is why organisations like UNAIDS, IFC, Sanofi pharmaceutical, United States and French mission recognized us.

Our current competitors include Carbon and Reliance HMO. Beside been the cheapest health insurance, we are currently we are the only Fintech that aim to use garbage to finance healthcare, provide access to micro capital and food stamps which are key problems of the poor that makes us unique. By linking garbage to healthcare access, micro capital and food stamps we are killing 2 birds with 1 stone a as the solution addresses the needs through the following:

•             Access to healthcare to reduce infant and maternal mortality in these regions

•             Improving sanitation & environment in slums and

•             Creating Jobs for the distribution network and waste collectors

Currently we leverage on webapp to enable people to access health insurance. 

feature we plan launching on the App

 Like Uber, companies and families in the former sector can get rid of their waste by simply requesting for a waste pickup from their homes or offices which can be picked by a random family within the area (families below poverty line in suburbs) to gain more points. This creates efficiency in collection as well as impact 

beside poverty and literacy rate one other big problem that leads to social exclusion in health care is trust. Most people don't understand how insurance works and to many, it is nothing but an expensive luxury. One of the biggest factors of higher infant and maternal mortality in Nigeria is Social exclusion. Because millions of people don't have a health plan these leads to over 55,000 women losing their lives to pregnancy and child birth.  

SOSO CARE as a low cost health plan aims to fill the gap in health inclusion through our flexible health plan. By utilizing recyclables to bring millions into the fold of health care, we aim to create trust, improve healthcare and also ensure environmental sustainability.  This is while UN habitat, Google,  and UNAIDS as well as US, German and French mission in Nigeria have recognized our work.

we are already in doing a pilot test with Kaduna state health insurance scheme to insure 2000 people. we also plan to replicate same model across 36 states in Nigeria. the biggest problem government faces with informal sector is unlike the formal sector where they can do a contributory scheme and debit their salaries monthly, the informal sector is not organized. 

As a low cost health insurance, we plan working with state government insurance programmes  to ensure  informal sectors like market women, bus drivers and SMEs can get a flexible and low cost health cover either with cash or their house hold recyclable. 

SOSO CARE solution is user friendly for incorporation into social protection programs which is evidenced in our collaboration with Kaduna state health insurance scheme to provide low cost health insurance to the  informal sector in the cities.  

This we also plan to replicate across other states. 

we don't use API but our back-end is designed to give agents access to sell their plans irrespective of their location.

We use a B2B2C model. Beside selling directly to users, because of digital divide and literacy rate, at a commission, our B2B model with mobile money kiosk is used to process the plan on behalf of users without internet connection and lower literacy in other to give them equal opportunity and inclusion. 

Currently we insure 2400 lives, by 2021 we aim to serve 250,000 lives and by 2025 we aim to serve four million lives. This is evidenced in our recent proposed partnership with one of the biggest banks in Nigeria, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) which aims to enable thousands of  their Tier one customers mostly informal sector to pay in tiny bits for their health plan. 

In the next 3 months with grant and funding we plan to move to Lagos with a population of over 25 million with about 40% living in slums and suburbs in poverty. This market alone will offer us 2 million people within 16 months.

Beside expanding into Ghana and Senegal, By 2025 we aim to collaborate with at least 17 states and cities in Nigeria through their state health insurance plan to cover up to 4 million lives. 

Our biggest barrier to ensuring last mile health inclusion is access to finance for awareness marketing since millions of people do not understand insurance and how it works.Again, faith based and cultural believes influence people's trust on the service but with access to funding which we plan working with NGOs for  advocacy we will change the narrative. 

We plan attracting Venture capital and grants to enable engage in awareness marketing which will change the narrative of the health insurance. Also, we plan engaging traditional rulers and faith leaders in our advocacy and awareness to influence the issue of culture.  

9 people all full staff. 

We have a team of diverse people with management, software, waste & insurance, health management,sales experience who are positioned to ensure that millions are bring into the fold of healthcare cover either with cash or recyclables. 

Nonso Opurum (CEO), BA, MBA UK. Former banker, Sales Agent, web designer and development journalist. As a journalist he worked with UNIDO for quality regulation of infrastructure in ECOWAS which included health and pharma products on consumer confidence. He cofounded maiyegundairy – a blog with 200,000 follower’s in governance in Africa.  He is a follow at the LEAP AFRICA SOCIAL INNOVATION on utilising technology to improve healthcare access.

Lareb Khalil Syed (CTO) BSC is Software Architect from National University of Computer Emerging Sciences (NUCES-FAST). With over 5 years of experience in the field he has handled many projects and multiple fullstack technologies. He started his career from CureMD Health.

Veronica Agana (Product manager) : Bsc,MBA. has over 12 years experience in HMO, waste and health management Ben offor: BSC, service manager MBA. 6 years in insurance

We partner with Hygeia HMO who is our underwriter. we also partner with Kaduna state insurance scheme for cover of millions in informal sector. we also planning to onboard 70,000 people across the value chain of Shoe production in Aba Abia state Nigeria (LIPMAS)

We use B2B, B2C and Subcription model. 

By partnering with Hygeia HMO to underwrite the insurance risk, Members access care by paying cash or delivering recyclable materials like bottles, glass, plastics bags equivalent to $1 monthly to our partner agents who sells the collected waste to big recycling companies as raw materials. The money generated from the sales is converted into health fund to finance the premium to enable them access healthcare in our 1170 partner hospitals.

 In summary this means people with low incomes can collect recyclable garbage from the streets and bring it to any of our registered agent nearest them who weighs and values the waste then credit the individual in the form of a medical health insurance.

To ensure access and inclusion for millions of people in disconnected communities with lower literacy and Access to internet we use B2B model with Mobile money kiosk and local pharmacy.  

We will break even in one year. This is evidenced in demand for services like healthcare access with the recent Covid-19. Again, waste recycling is growing. We can achieve this by investing $ 250,000 to setup our process and marketing across 25 states in Nigeria within 18 months which will targets 60% market share of over 60 million people living and operating as informal sector. With $150,000 we hope to insure 1,500,000 lives by 2022 at a revenue of $23 million with a net profit of $4 million.

In the next 6 months with grant and funding we plan moving to Lagos with a population of over 25 million with about 60% living as informal sector including those in slums and suburbs in poverty. This market alone will offer us over a 1 million lives within 12 months in policy sales. 

We have received over $12,000 as grant from organizations including Passion Incubation, First city monument bank, Nigeria health watch, Epic Afric and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

By covering construction workers, families and SMEs we've made revenue of over $25,000 within the few months we started operation. 

We are hoping to raise $250,000 seed fund basically to reach more people through awareness marketing, attract more talent and improve our operations. We have talked with Few Venture capitalist firms for Equity investment and we are  optimistic of closing the round soon to enable us scale. 

With rent, Operations, marketing and commission salaries, our 2020 expenses budget is about $28000

One of the biggest challenges of selling insurance in insurance is trust and being listed last year among top 5 solution on World Bank Youth summit has helped us gain some local trust and confidence in public sector like working with state health insurance scheme. By winning the  Mission Billion Challenge, we will get more local exposure on trust with local institution and the public. We are keen to get all networks that will enable us scale.

Most Importantly, Low knowledge on insurance product makes people consider it as expensive luxury, winning the Mission Billion Challenge will provide us funding for awareness marketing which will help us insure millions of people at the last mile. 

My Partnership goals is not just to attract funding for our marketing and growth  but to meet mentors who will advise and support us with better insight into service distribution,  sales, effective marketing and guide our fund raising process through  industry experience.

UNICEF will help us reach more people on the importance of child health and nutrition which our Partner UNAIDS currently provides for us as well as UN Habitat. 

We will also want a more deeper engagement with World Bank which will help drive our mission of collaboration with state health insurance scheme for informal sector.