Bamburi Cement offers its retailers Sh150m medical cover

Bamburi Cement is set to offer more than 800 of its retailers a Sh150 million medical insurance scheme for inpatient and outpatient services.

Dubbed ‘‘Afya ya NGUVU’’, the firm said it would reward resellers for loyalty, retention and growth of market share.

Sanlam General Insurance is the underwriter of the scheme to be administrated by Alexander Forbes, which will make available a 24-hour call centre and manage the day-to-day operations of the scheme.

“We conducted a market survey and realised that only 36 per cent of our retailers had medical insurance. Afya ya NGUVU is a direct response to this need,” said Bamburi managing director Bruno Pescheux.

“This is a unique and innovative value proposition which is not being offered by any other cement manufacturer.” He said a customised solution was developed for the medical scheme to help verify member details via mobile phone.

Alexander Forbes executive director James Olubayi, urged firms to customise solutions to ease the burden of health costs on their company supply chains, which are critical to the survival of any organisation.

“When innovation in product design is applied then one can strike a balance between benefits and price,” he said.

Sanlam general manager, group corporate business, Evans Nyagah said the move to secure the general risk cover for Bamburi’s retail force provides a good platform to spur insurance penetration in Kenya. 

Healthcare in Kenya is costly, pushing households to dig into their savings or hold fundraisers to settle medical bills in the event of chronic illness.