Avon Healthcare Limited HMO has unveiled its online health insurance service to deepen adoption of health insurance beyond the current 4 percent of Nigerian population.
With this online service, Nigerian can now buy and enrol to health plans from Avon HMO website via their mobile phones, laptops and tablets.
Avon announced the new product at an event in Lagos at the weekend, to celebrate three years of operation.
“When we started three years ago, our belief was that Nigerians from all walks of life should be able to access good quality healthcare services when they need it, without financial constraint leading to unnecessary complications and fatalities,” Adesimbo Ukiri, CEO, AVON, said.
Ukiri said “with health plans starting as low as N15,000 per year, Avon HMO has indeed brought quality healthcare services to the average Nigerian. Subscription to an Avon HMO plan means that whenever a covered ill health or accident occurs, the state of one’s finances won’t matter as Avon HMO oversees the healthcare service delivery and foots the bill.
“By giving people the ability to buy and subscribe online via mobile phones and other devices, we are bringing convenient and affordable healthcare services to everyone.”
Nigeria has long struggled to deepen its low penetration of health insurance coverage, which is widely accepted to currently be at just 3-4 percent of the entire population, she said. With this innovation, it is hoped that uptake to health insurance within the country will witness a surge and all Nigerians will benefit from it, she said.
Awele Elumelu, chairman person of Avon HMO, told Nigerians that there was hope in the country’s health care industry, and this was important to individuals, family and indeed the economy.
She said, “Avon HMO is happy to be key player in the critical development part in Nigeria, though we are far from universal coverage for different reasons ranging from insufficient fund, lack of proper infrastructure, inadequate legislative backing, poor will on the part of players and a couple of other reasons.
“We have seen coverage grow from less than 150,000 in 2004 to over a million now, and Avon HMO have been a major private sector contributor to these, but there is a lot of work to be done by all stalk holders.”
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