Brolly, the Ghanaian Techstars-backed insurance startup, has partnered with Bolt, the global ride-hailing company, to provide insurance coverage exclusively to Bolt riders in Ghana with daily premium payments.
Brolly, a Ghanaian insurtech startup underwritten by Allianz, is partnering with Bolt to insure drivers in Ghana. The startup had piloted its pay-as-you-go auto insurance solution, which allows drivers to pay premiums daily or weekly, with over 2,000 ride-sharing drivers before the partnership. However, the partnership now allows Bolt drivers to access insurance within the Bolt driver app, removing the need for them to have multiple platforms.
“Since we began Brolly a year ago, we saw that ride-sharing drivers were naturally attracted to our way of making premium payments,” Bernard Baah, the CEO of Brolly, told TechCabal. Brolly’s underwriting partnership with Allianz allows it to take a cut out of every policy that is sold on its platform. Baah added that the startup chose Allianz because it aligned with Brolly’s goal of continent-wide expansion, as Allianz is present in more than a dozen African countries.
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Africa is the continent least protected by insurance; the sector only contributes 3% of the continent’s GDP, which is less than half the global average. The penetration rate for insurance in Africa is 2.8%, the lowest for any continent. For many Africans, the cost of annual insurance premiums makes it an unaffordable luxury. Brolly, which currently has 4,000 users, initially started by collecting monthly payments but introduced daily and weekly payments to align with the income patterns of ride-hailing drivers and small business owners.
“With flexible payments, people can actually get the services they need because I have actually observed people struggle to pay their premiums,” Baah, the former general manager of Unique Insurance, a twenty-year-old insurance company, told TechCabal.
Motor insurance is the second largest contributor to Africa’s insurance market after life insurance. However, some customers can submit damaged cars for insurance, as most insurance companies do not physically inspect cars before insuring them. To combat this, Brolly integrated artificial intelligence by using image and video recognition technology to eliminate fraudulent claims. The startup uses this technology to verify claims and ensure that claims match the pictures that customers send in at the underwriting stage.
