Award Applications

About WazInsure
WazInsure, a Swahili lose translation for ‘Transparent Insurance’, is an insurtech startup that solves a 2-sided market pain between the market (lack of trust for insurers) and insurance providers (high distribution and admin cost) through to promote inclusive insurance to help to reduce usage of difficult coping mechanisms. There are over 20 million Kenyans who are uninsured and underinsured. Most of these people use OOP expenses to cover for emergencies because insurance products are too expensive. Noting this gap and owing also to the challenges on the growth of insurance in spite of the intense need, led us to set up our insurtech company.

The Problem & Solution
Kenyan insurers rely on conventional insurance products and distribution hence insurance is expensive due to high margins to cover for these costs. We believe by digitizing the insurance processes through WazInsure, means lower operational expenses for insurers thus cheaper insurance products for customers (– which means greater financial inclusion).

WazInsure is a white-label solution that automates the entire insurance value chain by providing a seamless & customer-centric experience to emerging customers and insurers making insurance simpler, transparent and cost-effective. It provides a SaaS platform for insurance companies to distribute & administer their insurance products and a mobile & USSD app for customers to access the insurers' products, all integrated with MPesa (and other cashless payment options), for premium payments.

Team
CEO & Co-Founder
Winnie Badiah is an actuarial professional with risk & actuarial expertise in insurance intermediaries, audit firm and asset management. She has profound experience in providing risk and financial support gaining extensive knowledge in product development, ensuring that the cost allocation methodology is aligned with business cases, and as well as executed market and industry research. Winnie received her MSc Actuarial Management from Heriot-Watt University (UK) where she developed her passion for risk management with a focus on protection for the financially undeserved. Specialties: Actuarial Consulting, Risk Management, InsurTech, Data Analytics, Strategic Planning, Project Management.

CTO & Co-Founder
Martin Wambugu is an IT professional with 8+ years of Information Technology and business management experience in the private sector with key emphasis on software development, enterprise solutions design, infrastructure management and project management. He has consulted as a software architect and led a team of developers in the execution of several enterprise projects in Kenya, Ethiopia and Zambia with some of the clients being African Union, WFP Somalia, UNICEF Kenya, UNICEF Somalia, Financial Intelligence Centre Zambia and various Financial institutions in Kenya. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Egerton University and is a certified Microsoft professional with various certifications e.g. Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA).

Uniqueness of Our Approach
Over 70% of insurance business in Kenya is through intermediaries. Our exclusive partnership with Kenya’s Agents’ Association (BIAK) will provide network effects guaranteeing us a market share of over 20% in the next 3 years.