Insurance is still a very hot topic in Nigeria, and this is demonstrated by the fact that Nigeria has yet to reach even 3% insurance penetration, despite all the players in the space – big and small. Cultural and religious beliefs also pose a huge challenge, as some people associate insurance with the planning of malicious events and therefore reject it outright.
Many players have focused on serving the formal sector of the workforce, while repeatedly trying to break into the informal sector. In the midst of all this, Mizala entered the insurance scene with a different type of insurance background.
Mizala offers simpler, easier and more flexible insurance packages and subscriptions, suitable for the informal and formal sectors. It offers ease of use, so new customers can sign up from their mobile phone and have an active insurance plan covering their vehicles, in 5 minutes.
Israel Ifedayo, Director of Operations at Mizala, explained during the Nairametrics Business Half Hour that Mizala was created to provide the first layer of financial security to its users, through its insurance packages. The word ‘Mizala’ is an Arabic word meaning umbrella, and the idea is that if you are preparing for a rainy day, you need an umbrella – Mizala.
“We all save for some reason. When you save, you save for the bad days or for something. We have budgets for all these random things that might happen to us, and we save for these things. What Mizala is saying is that when you insure your property you’ve had the best kind of savings because you really don’t need to save that much and whenever you have an incident you have the total amount you need to solve whatever the problem, because when you think about it, how much can you actually save for car theft? » Ifedayo explained.
Buy insurance in 5 minutes
The road to getting insurance coverage just got shorter with Mizala. Unlike the era of visiting physical offices and filling out lengthy papers and documents, one can easily purchase an insurance policy on the Mizala website within minutes.
Immediately after registering, filling in basic details and making payment, you will receive a pending police certificate in your email, only receiving the original once the inspection process is complete. The digital inspection process also covers this end so that everything can be done virtually with the customer taking real-time photos and videos of the vehicle.
“We’ve made it quicker and easier for people to get insurance, so you can literally get insurance in 5 minutes. We’ve also cut the claims process from an average of 14-28 days to less than 48 hours. The digital inspection process automates all of this and makes it easier and faster.We believe that insurance is the first layer of financial security and what we have done is make the process simpler, faster and very flexible.
What Mizala offers that others don’t
The government requires every vehicle owner to take out liability insurance to protect other road users. This means that in the event of an accident, the insurance covers the third party. In addition to this, Mizala offers a flexible and comprehensive insurance policy that covers the car, car passengers and any third parties in the event of an accident. In the event of theft, break-in or accident, the insurance covers all persons present in the vehicle at the time of the accident, as well as the third party involved. Additionally, policyholders receive a free car tracker when purchasing an insurance product from Mizala.
There is also the added feature where policyholders can opt for a weekly, monthly or yearly payment plan depending on income and convenience. For those who work in the informal sector and earn on a weekly or daily basis, this insurance product offers them the much sought-after convenience – a sort of pay-as-you-go option where one can pay weekly and at his convenience.
“They’re designed for the informal sector, perhaps those who earn daily or weekly and feel they can’t afford a monthly or yearly plan. So they can sign up for the weekly plan and pay weekly , and every week they don’t pay, the insurance is not active for that week, but every time they resume payment, it becomes active again.
Access complaints within 48 hours
While traditional insurance allows policyholders to make and access their claims within 14-28 days, Mizala has a process that cuts the time to less than 48 hours. Without going to a physical office, a customer can simply go to the website on their phone and initiate the police claim process, and perform another digital inspection.
“More than anything else, we understand that insurance is a business of trust and service. When you buy insurance, you spend that money because you trust that when you have a problem, they will sort it out for you. That’s why we focus on building a relationship of trust with our policyholders. In most cases, Nigerians have shown us that physically or remotely, as long as you don’t deny the quality of your service, they will always step in for you. Our fraudulent claims pattern so far is showing less than 0.5% and that’s really amazing,” Ifedayo noted.
The digital inspection process allows Mizala to immediately capture the necessary data, and the artificial intelligence and machine learning programs process these complaints and look for any fraudulent patterns. Once he has passed this stage, the policyholder receives his claims within 48 hours. So, despite having a physical office in Ikeja, Lagos, virtually every step is handled virtually.
Educate consumers
Due to existing customer predispositions and tendency to decline insurance, Mizala needs to invest a lot in educating customers to teach them the importance of insurance and show them that it really isn’t as opaque and difficult than before.
“Over the next two weeks we will be launching a Youtube animated series focused on teaching people about insurance primarily, what it does, how it benefits them and why they need to have insurance,“said Ifedayo.
Over the next 5 years, Mizala aims to increase insurance penetration in Nigeria to at least 5%, with more insurance products in transit, health and life e-commerce products.
