The launch of the strategic partnership between Jubilee Health Insurance and bolttech last week was important. However, the discussion panel that followed offered something different: a practical examination of what must change if health protection is to become more accessible, relevant and dependable for customers in Kenya and beyond. 

That conversation is the focus of this blog post. 

I moderated the “Connected to Protect” fireside discussion with:

· Njeri Jomo — CEO and Principal Officer, Jubilee Health Insurance

· Bente Krogmann Osore — General Manager, Africa, bolttech

· Bryan Nyutu — Principal Officer and Insurance Portfolio Lead, Safaricom PLC

· Ken Gitonga — Group Head of Technical Product, Watu Credit

The panel was especially valuable because each participant represented a different part of the ecosystem.

Njeri brought the insurer’s perspective on healthcare financing, underwriting, claims and provider accountability. Bente brought a Pan-African insurtech and digital-distribution perspective. Bryan contributed Safaricom’s experience of taking embedded protection to a large mobile and M-PESA customer base. Ken connected health protection to asset financing, daily income and the economic realities of young customers.

Rather than treating embedded insurance as a technology trend, the discussion examined the real frictions that determine whether protection works for the customer.

The conversation began with friction

I opened the panel by asking each speaker to consider the biggest barrier standing between customers and useful health protection from the perspective of their organisation.

The answers immediately showed why no single business can solve the protection gap on its own.

For Jubilee Health, the challenge begins inside the healthcare financing system. For bolttech, it includes whether a relevant offer appears at the correct moment. For Safaricom, it is about using data and trusted distribution to match protection to specific customer segments. For Watu Credit, the issue is connecting health cover to the assets and daily activity through which customers earn.

These were not competing answers. They were different parts of the same customer journey.

Njeri Jomo: affordability also depends on controlling healthcare costs

Njeri began with an important point: improving health insurance cannot be limited to making policies easier to buy.

An insurer must also examine what happens when a customer seeks treatment. Is the care appropriate? Are treatment protocols being followed? Does the bill contain unnecessary drugs, consumables or other charges? Are fraud, waste and abuse increasing the final cost?

According to Njeri, Jubilee’s analysis indicates that close to 30% of claims expenditure can be affected by fraud, waste and abuse, including extra billing.

Those costs do not disappear. They eventually return to customers through higher healthcare and insurance costs.

Jubilee has therefore invested significantly in AI, claims data and technology to detect suspicious billing, analyse treatment outcomes and hold providers accountable.

This became the panel’s first major lesson: expanding distribution is only one side of inclusion. If the underlying cost of healthcare remains inefficient, customers may gain easier access to a product that becomes progressively harder to afford.

Bente Krogmann Osore: relevance is inseparable from timing

Bente made the problem of timing tangible through a personal example.

She had travelled to South Africa without purchasing travel insurance. The problem was not necessarily price or a rejection of insurance. The relevant protection simply had not been presented during the part of the journey when it would have made sense.

That example captured the purpose of embedded insurance.

An insurance offer sent as a generic promotion is very different from a clear, relevant offer presented while a customer is booking travel, financing an asset, activating a service or making a payment.

Context matters because customers understand value more easily when the protection is connected to something they are already doing.

Bente’s contribution gave the discussion its second major lesson: the right product can still fail when it reaches the customer at the wrong time.

Njeri Jomo: embedded insurance requires a different operating model

The conversation then moved from distribution to transformation.

Njeri cautioned against interpreting embedded insurance as the simple digitization of an existing policy. Placing the same product inside an app does not automatically remove the friction surrounding design, payment, enrollment, administration or claims.

Embedded insurance requires a different approach to the product, the process and the technology.

The cover must be designed for the journey in which it appears. Premiums must reflect how the customer earns and pays. Benefits and exclusions must be understandable. The customer must know who provides the cover and what will happen when they make a claim.

This is also where partnership becomes operationally important. The insurer, technology provider and distributor must deliver one coherent experience even though several organisations are working behind it.

For the customer, the journey should feel connected. Fragmentation behind the scenes cannot be allowed to become friction at the point of need.

Bryan Nyutu: data and segmentation make protection relevant

Bryan brought Safaricom’s experience with embedded-insurance products including Tuunza Mapato and Tuunza Simu.

His contribution highlighted three practical lessons.

First, human-centred design requires sufficient customer understanding. A large customer base should not be treated as a single segment. A boda boda rider, farmer, merchant and salaried employee may use the same mobile network, but their risks, cash-flow patterns and protection needs differ.

Second, affordability is not only about the total premium. It is also about payment frequency. Weekly or monthly collections may align better with customers who earn and manage money in smaller, more frequent cycles.

Third, technical availability does not guarantee uptake.

An insurance product may be accessible on a large platform and still perform poorly if it is disconnected from the service customers use most, inadequately explained or unsupported by the wider distribution network.

Safaricom brings customer data, mobile and M-PESA touchpoints, an extensive agency ecosystem and high-frequency customer engagement. The insurer brings underwriting and claims expertise. Technology partners help connect the participants.

Bryan’s central point was clear: distribution must be designed, not assumed.

Ken Gitonga: health protection is also income protection

Ken introduced the relationship between health, productive assets and daily income.

Watu Credit finances motorcycles, three-wheelers and smartphones used for mobility, connectivity and work. For many customers, the financed asset is not simply a purchase. It is the tool through which they earn.

A health event can therefore create several problems at once. It may stop a customer from working, interrupt daily income, make repayments more difficult and place financial pressure on the household.

From this perspective, health protection is an enabler. It can help the customer recover and return to productive use of the financed asset.

However, Ken also highlighted the importance of trust. Customers must see the protection as a relevant and voluntary benefit. It should not feel like an unexplained charge hidden inside a financing agreement.

This is particularly important for younger customers and people who make small, frequent repayments. The insurance design and payment model must reflect how they actually manage money.

Ken’s contribution expanded the discussion beyond medical bills: protecting health can also protect the customer’s capacity to earn.

The audience questions expanded the discussion

The audience portion of the session moved the panel into several important areas that are often overlooked in conversations about embedded insurance.

Hospital cash is not the same as medical insurance

Bente distinguished hospital-cash products from comprehensive health cover.

Hospital cash can provide a useful payment after admission and help with lost income, transport or household expenses. It may also be an affordable entry point for some customers.

However, it does not settle a medical bill in the same way as inpatient or outpatient health insurance.

The problem arises when that distinction is not clear. A customer may believe they have comprehensive cover and discover the limitation only when seeking treatment.

The panel’s position was not that starter protection lacks value. It was that the product must be described honestly. Customers should understand the benefits, exclusions, waiting periods, payment and claims process before they enroll.

Technology cannot rescue an unclear strategy

Another audience question addressed the gap between ambitious digital visions and difficult technology implementation.

Bente and Njeri agreed that technology is an enabler rather than a complete strategy.

A platform cannot compensate for an unclear customer need, a weak product or partners who do not share the same objectives.

Successful embedded insurance requires each participant to understand its role. Insurers should focus on underwriting, healthcare financing and claims. Technology providers should supply reliable integration and infrastructure. Distributors should contribute trusted customer relationships, reach and appropriate data.

The customer experience depends on these capabilities working together.

Segmentation must serve customers, not only sales

The discussion also explored how the industry can serve customers with very different levels of income, digital confidence and insurance awareness.

Bryan explained that segmentation can draw on demographics, financial behaviour, transactions, occupation and customer research. However, the purpose should be relevance.

Responsible data use should help answer practical questions:

· What risk is most important to this customer?

· Which benefit will they understand and value?

· What premium can they sustain?

· How often should they pay?

· Which channel will make enrollment and claims easiest?

The objective is not to push the same policy to more people. It is to design protection around the customer’s context.

Insurance can become a reward

One of the more interesting commercial ideas was insurance as a reward.

Bryan suggested that lenders could give an insurance benefit to customers who make repayments on time. Bente described a partner that used micro-medical protection to reward agents who achieved agreed performance targets.

This changes the role of insurance. It becomes a visible benefit that can strengthen engagement, retention and loyalty while introducing customers to the practical value of protection.

Even in this model, transparency remains essential. Customers should know who is covered, for how long, what changes their eligibility and how to make a claim.

Community fundraising cannot remain the insurer of last resort

Njeri connected the discussion to a familiar Kenyan reality: harambees, family contributions and WhatsApp fundraising groups are frequently used to meet medical costs.

This solidarity is valuable, but it places friends, relatives and colleagues in the position of being the informal insurer of last resort. The model is also becoming harder to sustain as households face greater financial pressure.

Njeri noted that around one million Kenyans experience impoverishment linked to catastrophic health expenditure each year.

This gave the conversation a wider purpose. The objective is not simply to sell more policies. It is to prevent a medical event from becoming a household poverty event.

Where the four perspectives converged

Although the panelists represented different organizations and business models, the conversation produced several areas of agreement:

· Access begins with distribution but does not end there.

· Affordability depends on healthcare costs, product design and payment frequency.

· The right protection must appear during a relevant customer journey.

· Data should improve relevance and customer outcomes, not merely increase sales.

· The product must be understandable, transparent and voluntary.

· Technology works best when the strategy and partner roles are already clear.

· A dependable claims experience is the moment when trust is either confirmed or lost.

· Health protection can support income, repayment capacity, loyalty and long-term financial resilience.

These points make the discussion valuable beyond the four organisations represented on the panel.

Banks, fintechs, lenders, retailers, telcos, mobility platforms, health providers and other customer-facing businesses all have potential roles in embedded health protection. However, having a large audience or a digital platform is not enough.

The starting point must be a real customer need.

My key takeaway from the panel

The strongest insight from the discussion was that embedded insurance is not primarily about placing a policy inside another product.

It is about removing unnecessary friction from the entire path between risk and protection.

That means addressing healthcare costs, choosing the right moment, designing for distinct customer segments, matching payments to cash flow, connecting partner systems, explaining the cover clearly and delivering when a claim occurs.

The partnership launch created the setting for this discussion. The panel made the opportunity tangible.

If the ecosystem can combine convenience with genuine value and trust, health protection can become a dependable part of everyday economic life rather than a product customers remember only after a crisis.

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