SOSO CARE
- Nigeria
- Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit
The difficulty to seek medical attention and the collection of recyclable waste are two daily problems that face the Nigerian population and more broadly people in other African countries.
Because of pervasive poverty and poor healthcare financing (less than 3% of Nigeria’s 200 million population have health insurance), maternal mortality is high (55,000 Women die each year Source: WHO) among women who cannot afford out of pocket health care. At the same time, Nigeria generates over 34 million tons of waste yearly, including 20 billion PET bottles of which less than 10% is collected, sorted and recycled due to poor logistics and awareness which causes poor sanitation, public health problems and causes damage to the environment and oceans.
To validate our model, we used secondary data from World bank research, UNICEF, UN Habitat and WHO. We piloted our approach – generating revenue from users using recyclables to redeem the cost of policy premiums over a 6-week period and 92 people donated their waste to redeem cover. A key learning from our pilot was that efficiency and convenience in the waste collection process is critical for success as users will never walk long distances to recycle their waste. We learned that we needed to raise awareness around our products (converting waste to cash and affordable micro-insurance) through in-person and social media campaigns to increase conversion.
SOSO CARE is a micro mobile insurtech company aiming to provide health insurance to the underprivileged by using recyclables as insurance premium.
Our model is subscription based through partnership with insurance underwriters to provide us low cost insurance.
We partner with AXA and American insurance as our insurance underwriters, and we distribute micro-health insurance policies to underserved markets, particularly women in hard to reach markets in Kaduna, River States, and Abia state. SoSo Care is paid a brokerage fee to distribute policy. To pay for the insurance cover, the user donates or sells recyclables including bottles, glass, plastics equivalent to the premium. SoSo Care collects and crushes waste for sale to partner offtakers who sell the collected waste to big recycling companies as raw materials.
Our solution is designed to enable over 100 million Nigerians in the informal sector to finance their insurance premium using trash as premium.
By linking recyclables to healthcare, we use one stone to kill 2 birds which includes access to quality healthcare to reduce self-medication as well as infant and maternal mortality. Also we are solving environmental problem by promoting sanitation and public health. Finally we are creating jobs for our agents who distributes insurance while also fighting poverty by reducing unplanned medical expenses leading to out of pocket health financing
we have a team of 13 people with diverse knowledge on sustainability, recycling, management, sales, technology and finance who are committed to drive the service to millions of people.
- Other
- 1. No Poverty
- 2. Zero Hunger
- 3. Good Health and Well-Being
- 5. Gender Equality
- 6. Clean Water and Sanitation
- 8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
- 9. Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
- 10. Reduced Inequalities
- 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
- 12. Responsible Consumption and Production
- 13. Climate Action
- 14. Life Below Water
- 15. Life on Land
- 16. Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
- 17. Partnerships for the Goals
- Growth
At SOSO CARE we have been growing on over 10X month on Month on our insurance sales and total recycables recovered. we have built a few things around environmental sustainability, healthcare access and financial inclusion.
Firstly, we are the first and the only sustainable medical insurance which accepts recycable trash as insurance premium in over 1000 hospitals across cities in Nigeria.
secondly, in the past three years, we have accepted recycables as medical insurance premium for 11,500 people.
Thirdly, we have created 346 direct jobs and unlocked $150,000 as income for mostly women who accept trash as insurance premium in return for commission across different communities.
Lastly, we have recovered and recycled 760,000 kg from plastics from the environment.
By joining Solve, I hope to connect and network with people and mostly gain more insight on how to scale our work to more communities and cities
- Human Capital (e.g. sourcing talent, board development)
- Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
- Product / Service Distribution (e.g. delivery, logistics, expanding client base)
- Public Relations (e.g. branding/marketing strategy, social and global media)