Wass Insurance commences share sales to bridge health insurance gap

By our staff reporter
Specialized insurers comprising individuals, medical experts and companies unite through an under formation to provide health coverage, which has become unaffordable for the general public.
Despite the insurance sector being re-liberalized in the mid 90s, the sector has highly been dominated by the nonlife insurance business which is in contrast to the insurance industry business globally.
To bridge this gap, a group of individuals and those close to the health business are under formation to develop an insurance firm called Wass Insurance.
According to the organizers, Ethiopia is one of the bottom five countries in terms of health expenditure per capita in the world.
“To change this narrative and trend, prominent health professionals are working to establish an exclusive insurance company that will support the sector and the public in general,” the organizers said.
The under formation insurance firm that secured a green light from the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) a year ago to offer public shares has disclosed that it has begun its share offer early this week, courtesy of a ceremony held at Inter Luxury Hotel.
According to the organizers that have 159 founding members at the current stage, the company offered 293.3 million birr in subscribed capital and is expected to commence its operations with 76.8 million birr.
Private health facilities, pharmacies and health equipment importers are part of the founding organizers.
As per the plan, the new insurance company is expected to conclude the share sales in the near future.
Our service will fully focus on health insurance coverage, which is almost nil at the moment.
“Currently, health expenses are shooting up and it is becoming unaffordable for almost everyone. The backing of the sector by health insurance it is a big relief,” experts said.
According to the under formation company, its major priority will be health insurance.
As experts opined, even through the sector has insurance companies providing life insurance, the sector is not properly promoted, “This has also resulted in lack of knowledge in the sector as well poor public awareness which direly needs to be worked on.”
“Companies like Wass are vital and timely to cut challenges on covers of health expenses, since the sector has become very expensive,” they added.
Experts said that if the health insurance registers growth, it will go hand in hand in improving health related services.