Avon HMO partners Piggybank.NG to improve healthcare access for Nigerians
With less than 5 percent of the Nigerian population under any sort of healthcare cover, Piggybank.NG and Avon Healthcare Limited (Avon HMO) have announced a strategic partnership that will make a significant dent in this statistic.
This partnership will provide health insurance plans to users with flexible monthly payments. The companies collaborated to create a unique health care plan called AvonFlex, which is focused on affordability and flexibility for Piggybank.NG users.
Nigeria is home to over 67 million youth, with a deeply limited understanding of the importance of health insurance and equally limited healthcare coverage. While Avon HMO has used its platform to advocate for health education in part by pioneering the sale of healthcare plans online and launching straight to consumer retail plans, it is pushing the boundaries further by leveraging on ‘fin-tech’ to improve healthcare access.
With Piggybank.NG widely trusted by millennials as Nigeria’s fastest growing digital savings platform, both companies believe that the gap between access and affordability by can be further bridged with AvonFlex.
According to Adesimbo Ukiri, CEO of Avon HMO, “After awareness of healthcare plans and their impact, affordability is the second greatest impediment to more widespread health care coverage among Nigerians. AvonFlex is a healthcare plan that allows Piggybank.NG users pay for comprehensive health coverage in instalments, instead of a yearly lump sum. With some plans starting as low as N60/daily, AvonFlex offers value, flexibility and yet another viable option to access healthcare.”
“Partnering with Avon HMO to democratise access to and payment for healthcare plans was a no-brainer for us,” Terry Kanu, head of Business Development, Piggybank.NG, says, noting, “Avon HMO is a market leader, and exactly the type of innovative partners we like to work with.
“We are constantly looking for new ways to better serve and bring millennials into these financial services. With this new partnership, Piggybank.NG users will not only continue to save but also have access to affordable health care.”
AvonFlex provides an option that directly addresses the needs of previously unserved consumers such as entrepreneurs, young adults, students, domestic staff, and others who cannot pay the lump premium required to get a healthcare plan.
Piggybank.ng is an automated savings platform that gives Nigerian millennials the opportunity to save money periodically towards a target. Piggybank.ng provides a free platform that allows users to put aside as little as N100 a day to save up to a target and restricts withdrawals until a convenient date set by the user.
Licensed in 2012, Avon HMO is a health management organisation providing healthcare plans and other healthcare services to all Nigerians – individuals, families, groups, companies and communities. In 2015, Avon became the first HMO in the country to serve the retail market with an array of health plan options, offering everyone the opportunity to subscribe and pay via their mobile devices.