2.8% of Africans are insured, less than half the global average of 6.3%, making it the least insured continent in the world. Despite the terrible numbers, there is some good news. Most African countries have experienced double-digit CAGRs in local currency premium growth over the past five years, making the region the second fastest growing in the world after Latin America, according to a McKinsey report. It is positioned as an insurance market where
The fast-growing market is that insurtechs are actively offering businesses and end-consumers a range of solutions to help them manage the risk of their purchases, from vehicle purchases to access to lodging. is shown.
In the latest development, Curacel, a Nigeria-based platform aimed at facilitating insurance adoption in emerging markets via an API that allows insurers to connect to digital distribution channels and manage claims, , raised $3 million in seed funding. Founded in 2019 by Henry Mascot and John Dada, Curacel “builds the rails to make insurance work for the next billion Africans, using technology to embed insurance for users. to empower businesses everywhere.”
Initially, Curacel was intended as an electronic health information management platform for healthcare providers, allowing clinics to digitize and manage paper records, appointments, patient communications, billing and reports via a web app. Did. But soon the co-founders realized there was a much bigger problem facing healthcare, especially when it came to insurance.
Despite very low insurance penetration in Africa, many insurer processes use paper and outdated technology, making them time consuming, costly and prone to fraud and waste. of insurers lose billions of dollars to Fraud, Waste and Abuse (FWA) claims each year, becoming cautious and risk-averse in their dealings with customers. The pivot focuses on Curacel’s new business offering technology that helps insurers digitize and resolve more legitimate claims and mitigate losses with only the human intervention required for quality control. I meant put.
“In the second half of 2019, we set out to solve the problem of health insurers regarding the infrastructure to digitize their claims. It was that insurance companies across the board were losing about 20% of their premiums to fraud, waste and abuse. We had to do something to reduce it,” Mascot said in an interview with TechCrunch.
The YC-backed startup has gone to ensure that Flutterwave, Stitch, and Anchor have gone to payment and banking services using various APIs. The three-year-old company has segregated insurance products for several companies to drive inclusion and adoption on the continent. So far, the technology has addressed distribution and billing automation.
A distribution business is essentially Grow, an embedded insurance product. It is used by over 100 companies including banks, fintech, logistics and e-commerce platforms in his eight African markets (Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Morocco and Egypt). According to Curacel, some of these customers are increasing recurring revenue with digital insurance products such as ALAT, Provideus, PalmPay and Float.
Curacell team
Claims automation, on the other hand, is for insurance companies only, using this platform to improve the efficiency and accuracy of their claims process. Curacel currently has 20 partners including AXA Mansard, Old Mutual and Jubilee Insurance. Curacel says its “AI-powered” infrastructure means claims can be submitted and processed in real time, helping insurers cut claims cycles by more than 70% and process up to 10x more claims helps.
The Nigerian insurtech works with over 5,000 service providers in eight markets and claims to have processed over $100 million in claims since its inception. In the last year, Curacel has seen a 600% increase in trading volume and a 500% increase in revenue, according to a statement. The company’s revenue comes from an annual membership fee for claims processing and fraud detection. It also sets the take rate to premium and charges the company for API usage.
Currently working on billing and distribution, Mascot said Curacel is looking to offer underwriting and insurance payment services via an API. Product diversification is one of his ways to stay ahead of the growing competition in the African insurtech industry. Companies such as Harlem Capital-backed Lami and Naspers-backed Naked offer similar services to increase insurance penetration in their respective markets.
“We have our go-to products, Claims and Distribution. In the future, we want to handle underwriting, payments, etc. We want to build a platform that will allow us to operate some or all of
Mascot said several times in calls that InsurTech was built to serve companies in emerging markets, not just Africa. The chief executive hopes that Curacel’s recent rollout of services into North Africa via Egypt and Morocco will act as a pioneer to do the same for companies outside Africa. For now, the company will use this investment to deepen its presence across the continent.
Seed round investors include Tencent, Blue Point Capital Partners, Pioneer Fund, Olive Tree Capital, Y Combinator, AAF Management and Elefund (an investor in New York-based insurtech Sure, the latter of which also backed Pie Insurance). are included).
Elefund General Partner Serik Kaldykulov said of the round: “Curacel has built a suite of solutions and an impressive track record of success, and we are very excited to support their mission to use technology to drive insurance inclusion in Africa.”
Fitbit CEO James Park, Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola, and Kuda CEO Babs Ogundeyi were among the private investors in the seed round. Curacel said executives from Covergenius, Zopper and Pie Insurance will join its advisory board as part of the round.
