FBC Health Insurance provides bespoke medical solutions
FBC HEALTH INSURANCE was in partnership with Liberty Holdings of South Africa to locally distribute its product, known as Liberty Blue (health cover).
FBC Insurance holds the licence issued by the Ministry of Health of Zimbabwe to distribute health plans (that included Liberty health cover) and thus has a Health Insurance department that operates under it, with the mandate to run the operations.
Liberty exited the Zimbabwean market as at June 30, 2020, citing operating challenges in the market.
Subsequently, FBC Health Insurance came into being, developing a full array of local health insurance products that have now been on offer in the market with effect from July 1, 2020.
The FBC Health Insurance department is using the 2CANA HIP health administration system that it successfully launched on May 1, 2020.
FBC Health Insurance, as a funder, has all along been known as “Liberty” by default. FBC Insurance was in partnership with Liberty Health of South Africa, having an exclusive right to market the Liberty Health cover plans in Zimbabwe.
When the arrangement to stop distribution of the Liberty Health cover plans was stopped at the end of June 2020, FBC Health Insurance activated its decision to offer locally-developed plans that cater for the entire market.
“Liberty products were mainly aimed at the upper niche market and aligned to our strategy of financial inclusion, we took the opportunity to develop products that cater for a large crosssection of the market, incorporating; low, middle and upper market segments,” head of FBC Health Mati Lole said.
FBC Health Insurance is open to Corporates, SMEs has plans for individual members, including beneficiaries and dependeants of those in the Diaspora.
“FBC Health Insurance is excited to provide exceptional locally developed medical insurance packages and cover at competitive rates. The market has so far given a thumbs up to the current plans on offer,” he added.
Additionally, corporates also have the opportunity to have customised or bespoke cover like self-managed funds.
Under this arrangement, corporates are free to set up their own desired benefit plans and premiums with FBC Health Insurance coming in to offer administration services.
This process also involves the important input from our highly skilled in-house actuarial team that assesses the adequacy of cover in relation to the premiums contributed, after taking into account the disease burden of the fund. The clients are then guided accordingly.
This is a very smart way of providing cover, given the rapidly escalating medical inflation rate and the ensuing difficulty of always matching premium increases required by health funders to pay service providers accordingly.
FBC Health has a unique concept of allowing would be members to participate in designing the benefits that they desire at a cost that they are comfortable with. In addition ready-made plans on offer are affordable and provide access to services with the least co-payments or shortfalls for added convenience.
FBC Health will soon be combining banking services and health cover under a new and exciting offering.
There is a wide provider network for the added convenience of the members on offer, with more key providers expected to join soon. For members on our private plan and above, should the need arise, FBC Health Insurance is able to facilitate treatment abroad for complicated or specialised surgery that may not be available in Zimbabwe or is available, but too expensive.
Agreements with providers in South Africa, Malawi, India and other jurisdictions are being worked on to assist those who need to travel for medical purposes.
“The Health team is excited about the prospects of growing the ‘new kid on the block’ within the FBC Holdings family. The challenge is gladly accepted and they are ready to serve all their members because ‘they matter most’,” visibly excited Matipedza said. —
FBCH