BeNew Insurance from Cameroon offers financial guarantees to low-income earners

BeNew Insurance from Cameroon is a micro-InsurTech company that offers financial guarantees to low-income earners, aiming to transform the insurance ecosystem and promote insurance literacy while also focusing on environmental protection. The company competes based on the quality of service rather than price and operates in partnership with entities in Cameroon and Qatar. BeNew Insurance specializes in microinsurance, providing services such as Micro Group Life, Micro Agriculture, and Micro Health policies.

In this new series of interviews, we present companies from distant countries in the insurance sector. Today, BeNew Insurance from Cameroon, which recently acquired a license as an insurance broker in the Cameroonian market.

Newton Bezeng, the founder and CEO of BeNew Insurance, discusses the challenges and opportunities in the insurance market in Cameroon.

Newton Bezeng, what percentage of Cameroonians are actually insured?

In 2022 there were 21.52% for both life and property insurance figures with a penetration rate of less than 2%.

insurance cover is regulated differently in Cameroon than in Switzerland. How does it work for you?

Yes, there are some differences in the regulation of insurance in Cameroon compared to Switzerland. Cameroon is a party to the regulatory body for Francophone African countries (Conférence Interafricaine des Marchés d’Assurance CIMA code). The CIMA code delegates her implementation locally through the Ministry of Finance Cameroon.

Now it makes it difficult to market specificity-specific products tailored to Cameroon society because the Code is somehow holistic. For example, the InsurTechs are growing in Cameroon, and acquiring an insurance license is difficult due to regulatory requirements. It took us two years to acquire a brokerage license. Next is a partnership, micro insurance is a new market approach to improve and increase insurance penetration not very welcomed by underwriters and makes it difficult for them to sign partnerships with us on our products.

What insurance policies does BeNew Insurance offer?

Micro Group Life policies, Micro Agriculture policies and Micro Health policies.

Who do you work with to offer financial guarantees?

Insurance Companies, Micro Finance Establishments.

Insurance policies have been developed with BeNew Insurance to solve three main problems. What are they?

Low insurance penetration rate, environmental pollution, lack of education on Insurance as a service.

You came up with the idea of selling microinsurance to groups and associations. Tell us more about it.

Imagine a society where someone can pass away leaving dependence behind and can not attend school and he/she can not have a befitting burial. That is the case of Ma Pauline a widow aged 54, mother of five, and member of the SAWA Association. She is unable to pay her welfare contribution of USD 20 a year. If Ma Pauline passes away, her children will not benefit from the Association’s welfare scheme. So no befitting burial for her, and two of her children could not enroll at school due to lack of finances.

So, BeNew Insurance developed a solution to sell affordable micro life insurance covers to low-income earners (persons living below USD 5 a day) like Ma Pauline belonging to groups (social, economic). With USD 1 a month, you have a life cover and USD 12 a year.

What can policyholders who are unable to pay their premium do as an alternative?

Alternatively, if member cannot pay their premiums from their pocket they can collect recyclable plastics and sell them to our partners (recycling companies) and the value of the plastic is converted to their insurance premium cover.

By taking out this insurance, a contribution is made to preserving the environment. How much is this contribution?

It is enormous, now imagine six million tons of plastic waste entering the Cameroon ecosystem yearly and only 10% is recycled. Recycling companies have difficulties collecting this plastic and now our policyholders will collect it on their behalf. During the rainy season in Cameroon major cities experience floods simply because drainage systems are fully blocked with plastic bottles. We think we can solve this problem in a couple of years using our solution while providing financial guarantees to low-income earners. Also, Cameroon a coastal country that stretches to the Atlantic Ocean is now a canal to transport plastic waste to the ocean and we all know the consequences. We are engaged to prevent that occurrence through our solution.

Over the next few years, you want to bring 37,000 customers on board with a premium income of 430,000 US dollars. Where do you currently stand with this project?

Interestingly, we are completing regulatory requirements to roll out our solution to the market this month. We are officially onboarding next month, with close to 2000 clients on standby, ready and waiting for us to subscribe.

Major insurers such as Allianz and AXA are competing for the Cameroonian market. How do you counter them?

Our competitors concentrate on conventional insurance while we specialize in microinsurance. We are the first in the Cameroon market with such a solution: an affordable premium, and an alternative premium payment approach. We do not compete on price but on market fit. Our solution gives the possibility of every Cameroonian to be able to own at least one insurance cover.

There is no state health insurance in Cameroon. The cost of necessary medication and medical treatment is unaffordable for many inhabitants and private doctors and hospitals only treat patients who pay in advance. What do people do when they need medical help and how do they pay for it?

Interesting question, when we developed our solution we thought of this and this is how we tackle the issue. With just a USD 1 premium a month and USD 12 a year, our solution has an add-on hospital cash. Therefore when our clients are in hospital for more than three days and provide the required documentation as proof of hospitalization they receive direct indemnification from us into their mobile wallet accounts based on the number of days they spent at the hospital bed.

In addition, we are now working with another underwriter to write a Micro Health policy for those clients who can afford extra cash to cover their health. This is due to numerous requests from some groups.

Newton Bezeng is the Founder and CEO of BeNew Insurance, passionate about Risk Management, InsurTech, and FinTech. He is bilingual in English and French and has 13 years of working experience in the insurance sector, telecommunications, business consultancy retail business and volunteering experience both onsite and online. He is researching how technology, finance, law, and business management principles can be merged to provide the best profitable business practices. Newton has a broad cross-functional knowledge in the fields of marketing, risk management, project management and forecast, customer relations, law, online social media management, and online blogging. He has a strong belief in continuing education (lifelong Learning) and its long-term impact on values that go a long way to building the capacity for self-realisation and leadership. Besides, he is a PhD research student in economics and business, holder of a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA), an LLB in in Laws, a certificate in Takaful, a diploma in Applied Insurance Studies, a Certificate in Google IT support, a certificate in Agricultural and rural Finance, and Business and risk management course certificates.