In February 2019, Moses Mukindi Mbugua had an acute allergic attack. Between the long wait time, piles of paper and denied pre-authorisation, he was frustrated and sicker by the time he left the hospital, five hours later. 

Through different conversations with casual people and healthcare providers, it became clear to him that his terrible experience was not particular to him, and learnt that for some it was even worse. 

One day as he was heading home from a work trip in Kampala, an idea came to him as he was seated in the back of a taxi. "I had an idea, or rather a vision, of creating a digital health insurance that was simpler, faster, and stress-free,” he says.

Mukindi  launched the digital start-up to make healthcare experience better. Photo/Courtesy

In August 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, he decided to take a leave of absence from Wharton Business School where he was pursuing an MBA, and moved to Rwanda. "I didn’t know that this idea would consume me, till I took leave to solely concentrate on the idea,” he says.

This marked the start of Eden Care, Mukindi’s idea of a better insurance experience. "I spent six months in Rwanda, talking to employers and employees. The majority I found were frustrated with their current plans and were looking for a better alternative that manages premiums cost inflation, customises products, offers a better experience, reduces wait time at the hospital, and offers wellness and prevention,” he notes. 

His findings align with Willis Towers Watson research that shows that 86 per cent of employers in Africa are rethinking their health plans. Mukindi and his team had to first convince the National Bank of Rwanda to lift its moratorium on new insurance licenses, put together a 1,200-page license application in two-and-a-half months, raise a prototype in December 2021, and reimagine a wellness-first health insurance model as he calls it. 

"It is the smile of a mother with a sick child because of how easy we made it for her to access care, the laughter of our hiking community out for the weekly hike, and the joy of a young man/woman attaining Diamond status of our wellness programme, the kind of moments that will make this difficult journey ahead worth it,” he says.

How Eden Care works

Eden Care Medical, a Rwanda-based digital health insurance start-up, is now the first company in East and Central Africa to receive approval to offer digital health insurance, following the Letter of No-Objection granted by the National Bank of Rwanda in June 2022. 

For employers, it provides a dashboard to manage their team’s cover in simple clicks compared to 10 emails and calls it usually takes to manage an employee’s cover currently. It also enables data-driven wellness planning that engages the whole team. 

For employees, Eden Care provides an interactive app that helps them easily navigate the healthcare system, including finding the nearest pharmacy with their prescription, reducing wait time at the hospital, and helping coordinate their care. 

Additionally, it offers a fun and engaging wellness programme focused on fitness, nutrition, and health check-ups that rewards its members for meeting their wellness goals. Later in the year, Eden Care plans to launch free telemedicine, remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology, for its members.

"While we know that we will be competing with some of the continent’s largest health underwriters, we also know that we are now in a unique window when a digital entrant could gain market share rapidly by creating a superior product and experience,” he notes.

In this sector, the stakes for health underwriters when it comes to providing lasting value to consumers have risen due to the shift towards consumerisation, technological innovation, and personalisation in health care, along with the accelerating demand for value and accountability.

"As the first technology-driven, customer-centric health underwriter company, we have built an innovative full stack technology platform that is uniquely positioned to deliver against this challenge,” Mukindi responds.

However, being the first comes with a degree of challenge. "There is a need to educate our partners, buyers, and users that we will have to take care of,” he says.

Mukindi’s Eden Care is one of the local entrepreneurship start-ups that were showcased to CHOGM delegates who attended the first day of the Commonwealth Business Forum. The delegates toured Norrsken House Kigali, an entrepreneurship hub, where Mukindi’s project was incubated.

Eden Care is a combination of two words. ‘Eden’ which means a state of happiness and bliss and ‘Care’ which means to look after and provide for the needs of someone. According to Mukindi, combining the two words was their way of defining customer-experience first approach that seeks to build a health insurance experience that is delightful for members and keeps them healthy.