Wallace Gichoho saw an opportunity to digitise delivery of insurance products from the widespread use of the mobile phone in the country.
The Bachelor’s of Commerce graduate from Nazarene University said the use of the smartphone to access internet presents a huge opportunity to deepen insurance coverage.
“The main impediment to growth of the insurance industry is lack of information where Kenyans not only get to engage insurance companies but also know about various products and their price,” he told Enterprise.
Mr Gichoho hired IT experts to actualise his idea and formed a firm known as Experience Domains launched.
Mr Gichoho also designs and manages websites for non-governmental as well as state departments among them the government’s tenders portal.
Mr Gichoho said it took him a year to develop the Bima App that was piloted last year with several insurance companies expressing interest to use the portal.
“Most are unsure whether to run their products on the portal that empowers customers to compare services and products as well as prices”, he said.
Mr Gichoho (below) said insurance companies have nothing to fear since his service is just a forwarding app that enables Kenyans to compare products on offer and when they are attracted to a product, they can click on it and be linked automatically to the insurance company.
“We neither handle money issues nor store any data on various companies but allow the companies to direct complete transactions arising from our subscription-based service,” he said.
“We seek to reach customers on mobile-based portals giving insurance companies an avenue to market their products with ease and directly to clients who will study products before making choices.”
The portal has since attracted several companies that get real-time feedback on their services and prices.
Bima App boasts of a geo-locater service that gives individual users information on the nearest car garage, hospital or police station as well as individual contacts as suggested by their insurance companies.
“In case of an accident, a client (vehicle owner) logs in and sends a report including pictures of the damaged vehicle. This will root out fraudulent claims as insurance companies can immediately send in their representatives to the scene,” he said.
Mr Gichoho said agents have also been brought on board whereby individual insurance companies have operator rights for their account on the portal which empowers them to include an interactive section where agents and brokers handle individual client accounts and are paid via mobile money platforms.
“No one is ending the reign of brokers and agents in selling insurance policies but we are giving insurance companies a portal that helps them understand their market. It will help them determine markets that could be tapped to power growth of individual products,” he said.
The service also keeps records of all transactions confidentially whereby remainders for renewal of policies will be sent to clients a month before the policies expires.
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