Microfinanças

95.8% of all health care spending in Nigeria is done through out of pocket payment, including maternal health services. This often leaves the poor open to financial ruin due to health bills and sometimes prevents them for seeking health services even when they are already showing symptoms of ill health. Each year, Nigeria loses 545 women for every 100,000 births. Only 58% of Nigerian women have access to antenatal services which saves lives before and during birth, most of this is due to the inability to pay for health services. Our company solves this problem by providing micro health insurance for the poor and middle class who are unbanked for maternal health services using mobile money technology.

Sweet Mothers Inc. aims to build a social enterprise to deliver micro insurance for maternal health services for low to middle income women. 95% of health care spending in Nigeria is through out-of-pocket payment that often leaves poor families destitute or permanently in debt. Further, most women make major health and lifestyle changes during pregnancy and we plan to help them build a habit of planning ahead for health expenditure using mobile money technology that allows them to save for their health conveniently.

Sweet Mothers Inc. is committed to the reduction of maternal mortality rates by improving access to prenatal, delivery, and postnatal health care through a range of micro insurance products for low to middle income pregnant women.

Providing access to decent healthcare services before, during and after pregnancy, without the crippling out-of-pocket expenses.

Currently pregnant women who fall into the low income bracket in Lagos, Nigeria.

Our company plans to use mobile technology and direct marketing using radio ads to reach our customers.

Educating women on the importance of [maternity/maternal] health insurance, selling insurance premiums, fulfilling claims, inspecting and validating partner-hospitals to ensure customers are provided with decent, satisfying health care services.

Our peers are the insurance company and they a decision to target our customers might pose a risk to our success. Also, a Lagos health insurance for our target market might also pose a threat.

The general business culture in Nigeria leaves all businesses operating out of this country open to huge risks, however, with a strong strategic plan, a focused team, and efficient leadership will help us mitigate all these risks.

– Continually educating women on the importance of our insurance product. – Provide all the support needed by our partner-hospitals to ensure our customers get the best services. – Form new partnerships with financial institutions, NGOs etc., using their platforms to increase our customer base.

Our business is ready for growth because our target market is untapped by current players in the sector and our innovation is strong and solely focused on this target market.

Groth Objectives: To provide micro health insurance service for 10,000 pregnant low income women in choice hospitals in Lagos by 2020. To reach $1 million in revenue by 2020.

Short term - Launch the business and have our first paying customer. Time frame: 6 months.
Mid-term - Reach a revenue of $1million and serve 10,000 women. Time frame: 5 - 7 years.

Through the Uplift Model we have been trying
1)reduce obstacles in access of quality health care :in an unregulated medical environment, the poor have little capacity and information to access quality healthcare and make appropriate choices.
2)reduce health expenses:25% of Indian population fall below the poverty line with single hospitalization every year. The poor have to rely on out of pocket expenses not only to manage their health but their finances,making their livelihood very vulnerable.
3)the information asymmetry on health and health care:due to information asymmetries on health mechanisms and the lack of effective public healthcare systems, the poor rely on misinformation and superstition, beliefs favouring diseases and deaths that could have been easily avoided

1) To reduce obstacles in access of quality health care : our solution aims to reduce health expenses (see below, 2) and guide members to appropriate healthcare facilities (through access to Uplift 24x7 Helpline).
2) To reduce health expenses : we will offer a coverage of hospitalization expenses and we can rely on Uplift network HCP providing treatment at rationalized rates.
3) To reduce the information asymmetries on health : we will spread health preventives messages, through Health Check up camps organised by the HCP network, and information provided at the time of enrolment.
To ensure affordability of this product : in the first year, employer will contribute to the premium payment. In the following year, savings facilities will be there to facilitate payment of the premium.

Uplift vision : our health in our hands
Our overall objective : a better access to health for everyone
Our underlying objectives : improve access to quality healthcare (guide members to appropriate health care facilities and reduce health expenses and ) / improve health behaviour by spreading health knowledge and preventive message.
We apply this vision and objectives in all our projects we are implementing in Uplift, including this new project "Helping our hands".

Our value proposition with the project "Helping our helps" is health financing using micro-insurance through a community-based mutual model complemented by health savings.
This health financing is for a target population that is out of the reach of national health schemes, commercial insurance and microfinance providers. This is a segment vulnerable to high health expenses in the absence of proper information and guidance.
Access to health services is the second part of our value proposition. We propose to bring quality health services, information and access to the target population by means of a multi-layered health care provider network (providing concessions rates for Uplift members), a 24x7 helpline with a medical doctor and health check-up camps.

Currently, Uplift customers are slum dwellers.
The average monthly per capita income of the families we are working with in Pune is 1900 INR (about 27€). We also measure poverty level with a in-house tool taking into account house, food habits, education, health, economic activity, documentation, financial links, ranging from level 1 to 7 (1 being the lowest). 90% of our members are level 4 and below.
Furthermore, our customers are not familiar with insurance principles, therefore systematic client education effort is required.
The specific group of customers we target in this project "Helpling our helps" are the domestic workers (housemaid, nanny, drivers, etc.) and their families, working in Pune.

In this specific project, we plan to approach domestic workers by reaching out to "cooperatives housing societies" in Pune (families who employ domestic workers). These housing societies have an office and elected office bearers among the families living in the society. We will approach them, communicate about the scheme and orient them during their monthly meetings.
We will use the following tools during those meetings : Uplift movie on health mutual fund concept, brochures for employers and for domestic workers.

Uplift is providing technical support for implementing and managing health micro-insurance program :
- Back-office support: Back office processes design, Enrolment, Insurance card issuing, Claims processing (including medical checking), Enrolment and claims quality checking
- Front office support : Front office processes design (enrolment, claims, health services), Provision of preventive health care services, 24/7 helpline, HCP network building and management, Client education, Field activities assessment
- MIS:Data recording and back-up,MIS development
- Product pricing and design
- Risk Management and product design
- Trainings
Uplift has also consultancies activities (e.g. client education tools design) and is involved in international organisations (conferences, studies..)

Our peers are :
- NGOs working on the slum areas with communities and providing micro-loans and other financial services for low income people.

Our competitors are :
- Commercial insurers providing micro-insurance products
- Government schemes
So far, these competitors have not been impeding Uplift growth : commercial insurers in India are selling micro-insurance products that most of the time are not efficient and does not match the needs of the customers. Government schemes are not fully efficient nor universal. Even though we can think that those scheme will become more and more efficient, we can work with them since OOPEs for the families who benefit from government schemes can remain high and those schemes are not providing health services.

- Our main environmental challenge is regarding the micro-insurance regulation : currently, regulation in India regarding micro-insurance only identifies partnership between commercial insurers and organizations (MFI, NGO, etc.), like for microfinance. Community-based model are under discussion with the regulator (IRDA).
- Regarding organizational challenge, resources are a challenge. Fund-raising for this project is on-going.
- Getting skilled staff for our projects (including this new one) is an individual challenge, especially to find medical doctors.

With this project, we want to target new customers group - the domestic workers - and their families, accross housing societies in Pune. Later we will target Mumbai also.

Our business is ready for growth because we have achieved stability in our current business. Therefore, we can leverage :
- our 10 years experience in implementing and managing health micro-insurance program
- our quality health care provider network in Pune
- our 24x7 helpline facility
- our in-house micro-insurance software
- our experienced staff to lead the project

- Target new groups - domestic workers and their families
- Achieve scale to ensure sustainability of the scheme (2000 families is a minimum at the beginning) along with satisfaction of the members and planned social impact.

- Short-term : settle the program and achieve scale for sustainability (2000 families - 500 hundred families per quarter in the first year) in Pune
- Mid-term (3 years) : scale it up to other cities (Bombay)

Venture Clinics:

First and foremost, success will be determined by the amount of impact our Venture Clinics make on local organizations. We will ask: "To what extent did our students help this organization?" "How have we helped this organization?"

Importantly, success is developing long-term relationships between the organization, and the club and students. We will ask "What is our relationship like after the Venture Clinic?" "Did we create other opportunities which connect this organization and students?"

Of course, success will be determined by the enthusiasm (we prefer "passion) for Social Enterprise we generate in students.

The Club:

On a conceptual level, success will be measured as to whether or not we hear from students, on a general level, that we are both a) inspiring students who were not previously aware of social enterprise to become informed and b) recognized as the first-stop for students interested in social enterprise.

Secondly, success will be having created a self-sustaining, student-run organization that is ready for transition this year and the years to come.

Thirdly, success is students, as a result of our club, investigating and even choosing careers in Social Enterprise.

Success will also be hearing from the outside organizations and professionals we work with that we are adequately promoting Social Enterprise, and that they are eager to work with us further.

Success is a process by which the club’s influence grows. A vision for success is a vision where the club is well-known in the UBC community as a group championing a concept that students, if they want to drive change, should consider.

Success is having assembled a club composed of students who are creative leaders and restless changemakers.

Success is where we expand to greater numbers while still retaining the feel of a close community of passionate students.

Ultimate success is seeing social change in our community and those of others.

1. Whether or not the organization grows, in all aspects, and by how much. The level of growth is determined by demand from students and our capabilities to expand.
2. The quantitative, and anecdotal, results of our social impact project.
3. The number and size of outside organizations that contact us to work with us to engage our student body.