By 
By Ross Moyo
In Harare, Steward Ganda, 60, could not afford health insurance. He could afford a funeral.
That is the sentence that has haunted Zimbabwe since Al Jazeera told his story in February 2026. Ganda spent his last months in pain and relative poverty, trying to raise a specialist consultation fee of $600 that was far beyond his family. He died within a month. Then came the funeral he had paid for, faithfully, $11 a month to Nyaradzo Group: a casket, a hearse, burial equipment and a 65-seat bus to carry mourners on the 135km journey from Harare to his hometown of Wedza.
While Ganda could not afford health insurance, which averages about $200 per month and would have covered his diagnosis and treatment, he never missed his funeral payment.
Ganda is no exception. In Zimbabwe, data show more people are preparing for death than for survival as funeral insurance has eclipsed medical cover to become the most widely held financial product in the country.
EcoSure Health has now launched EcoSureMed, a healthcare product that gives Zimbabweans access to medical cover, ambulance services and funeral cover from US$5 a month. The company says it is a direct answer to Ganda’s story, and to millions like him.
The product extends conventional micro-health insurance to address some of the practical and financial difficulties that come with illness. Members receive airtime and data when they are hospitalised, helping them stay in touch with family, friends, employers and others they rely on for support.
Members can also access emergency loans to help meet other expenses that arise while they are unwell. MARS ambulance services include emergency transport and intensive care unit transfers.
EcoSureMed offers three monthly packages: Basic at US$5, Plus at US$7 and Prime at US$10. Individuals and families can choose a package that suits their needs and budget.
The packages include health tips and cover for virtual and in-person medical consultations, medication, diagnostic services and hospitalisation. Plus and Prime members also receive maternity cover, discounts on chronic medication and support to help them stay on treatment for conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.
All three packages include EcoSure funeral cover of up to US$1,500 in the event of death.
EcoSureMed is open to all Zimbabweans, including informal-sector workers, traders, farmers, domestic workers, small business owners and families who have struggled to afford conventional medical cover. Zimbabweans living abroad can also use the product to arrange cover for relatives back home, helping them manage unexpected medical expenses.
EcoSure Health said it developed the product to reduce the financial and practical barriers that keep people from seeking medical care, adding that every life matters to the company.
Many Zimbabwean families recognise the value of healthcare but struggle to afford protection before a medical emergency occurs.
EcoSure Health is calling for a decisive shift from funeral cover, which pays out after death, to medical cover that preserves life, and for families to move beyond the cultural barriers that have kept funeral cover the default.
EcoSureMed has responded to this need by bringing together essential healthcare, emergency response and additional financial support from as little as US$5 a month, the company said.
It added that EcoSureMed gives employers an affordable way to provide healthcare cover for their staff, including domestic workers who may have no employer-sponsored cover.
To register for the new product, the company said one simply needs to dial _900# or contact EcoSureMed on WhatsApp at 0778 775 200.
That is the product. The question is whether US$5 can do what US$200 has failed to do: make Zimbabweans pay for life, not just for death.
THE NUMBERS THAT MAKE ECOSUREMED NECESSARY
About 16 million people, or roughly 90 percent of the population, have no health insurance and must fund medical care out of their own pockets, according to 2023-2024 data from Zimbabwe’s National Statistics Agency.
Fewer than 900,000 Zimbabweans are in formal employment with employer-provided health coverage benefits.
Of all insured Zimbabweans, 72 percent hold funeral insurance policies while only 30 percent have health insurance, according to a 2022 report from the financial inclusion nonprofit FinMark Trust.
Medical aid coverage remains limited to roughly 8 percent of Zimbabwe’s population, according to Equity Axis analysis of FY2025 market data. That is only about 1.3 million Zimbabweans formally covered. Another recent report put coverage even lower, at 4 percent, after more than a decade in which the national coverage rate stagnated at around 10 percent. The exact figure depends on definition, but the direction is clear: coverage is tiny, and it is shrinking, not growing.
Medical aid contributions average between US$55 and US$65 per member per month, while utilisation rates exceed recommended levels and claims ratios often surpass 90 percent, according to submissions to Parliament in the debate over Statutory Instrument 330 of 2000.
In other words, the traditional medical aid market is built for the top 8 percent. It costs $55 to $65 a month for a single member, and $200 a month for a family package that would cover diagnosis and treatment properly. For a country where 60 percent of the population lives on less than $3.65 a day, that is not insurance. That is a luxury.
Public health fees can start at about $5 per month, but government-run facilities suffer from poor infrastructure, limited drug supplies and staff shortages caused by the migration of healthcare professionals, which many said lead to low-quality care.
That is why Ganda, and millions like him, made a rational choice. If you cannot afford $200 a month for medical aid, and you do not trust the public hospital to have drugs, what do you do? You pay $0.75 to $1 a month for funeral cover, because you know that bill will come, it will be immediate, and your family will be judged if they cannot pay it.
Funerals are immediate, unavoidable events that come with significant financial and communal expectations, said Innocent Tshuma, public relations manager at Doves Holdings Group, a funeral services provider, in the Al Jazeera report. In contrast, access to comprehensive medical aid remains limited due to affordability challenges, exclusions and unpredictable out-of-pocket costs.
Some Zimbabweans, like physician Vivek Solanki, note that discussing illness and preparing for medical crises can be socially taboo, while planning for death is widely accepted and prioritised.
Community responses have emerged alongside formal insurance products. Grassroots burial savings groups and informal burial societies help members contribute small monthly amounts to cover funeral costs, offering an alternative for those unable to afford commercial policies.
EcoSure itself knows this market better than anyone. EcoSure, the micro-insurance product from Econet Life, has played a significant role in raising the country’s insurance penetration by over 200 percent, from as low as 5 percent to over 16 percent. EcoSure General Manager Godwin Mashiri said the insurance service currently covers over three million people, who all register and maintain their cover using the mobile phone.
EcoSure is Zimbabwe’s largest life assurer by policyholders. It currently covers over 5,000 Clubs and Burial Societies.
Its existing funeral packages show the price ladder Zimbabweans already know: Lite $700 payout for $0.95 monthly premium per person, Basic $1,500 payout for $2.00, Standard $3,000 payout for $4.00, Premium $6,250 payout for $8.50.
EcoSureMed sits on top of that ladder. At $5, it is more expensive than a pure funeral policy, but it is 11 times cheaper than the $55 average medical aid contribution, and 40 times cheaper than the $200 family medical aid that Ganda could not afford.
That is the gamble: can you move a customer who already pays $2 for funeral cover to pay $5 for funeral plus medical, if you make the medical part simple, visible, and usable?
WHY AIRTIME, DATA AND A LOAN MATTER AS MUCH AS A DOCTOR
Most medical aid products in Zimbabwe sell you a consultation and a hospital bed. EcoSureMed sells you something else first: connection.
Members receive airtime and data when they are hospitalised, helping them stay in touch with family, friends, employers and others they rely on for support.
That sounds small. It is not.
Ask any family that has had a relative in Parirenyatwa, in Sally Mugabe Central Hospital, in Mpilo, in United Bulawayo Hospitals. The patient is in a ward with no WiFi, no charger, no airtime. The family is outside, trying to find money for drugs, for blood, for a scan. The employer is calling to ask when you will return. The church is calling to pray. The burial society is calling to ask if they should start collecting.
If you are cut off, you are alone. If you have airtime and data, you can call your sister in South Africa to send money, you can WhatsApp your employer to explain, you can ask your doctor a follow-up question, you can tell your children you are okay.
EcoSure Health has understood that illness in Zimbabwe is not just a medical event. It is a communication crisis and a cash-flow crisis.
Members can also access emergency loans to help meet other expenses that arise while they are unwell.
That second feature is even more important. When a breadwinner falls ill, the family does not just pay hospital fees. They pay transport to hospital, food for the caregiver who stays at the hospital, lost income because the market stall is closed, school fees that are now late, rent that is now due.
A 2025 webinar organised by the Community Working Group on Health and the African Health Federation, titled Financing Zimbabwe’s Health Future: Domestic Resource Mobilisation in an Era of Declining Donor Support, heard exactly this. Presenting on behalf of the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, Taremedzwa Moyo said the decline in donor funding has had a significant impact on consumers, patients, and households, with the burden falling squarely on ordinary citizens through higher out-of-pocket costs. As donor-funded medicines, diagnostics and services become less available, patients have had to pay for consultations, lab tests, medicines, medical supplies and hospital fees. You find consumers sometimes opting to borrow money or to reduce spending on food and education, falling into debt, so that they can be able to pay for their healthcare.
An emergency loan, if it is fairly priced and quickly disbursed, can stop a family from selling a goat, a sewing machine, or a market stall to pay a hospital bill. It can stop a family from falling into debt with a loan shark who charges 30 percent a month.
EcoSure Health has not yet published the loan terms for EcoSureMed: how much can you borrow, at what interest, how quickly, and what happens if you cannot repay while you are still sick. This newspaper has asked for those details. They matter, because a loan that helps you in hospital but traps you after discharge is not help. It is a new problem.
MARS: WHY AN AMBULANCE IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH
MARS ambulance services include emergency transport and intensive care unit transfers.
MARS is Medical Air Rescue Services. It has been in operation since 1991. It operates 10 bases in Zimbabwe in Harare, Bulawayo, Kwekwe, Kadoma, Gweru, Victoria Falls, Mutare, Masvingo, Kariba and Marondera. With a fleet of road ambulances and air ambulance, MARS is ideal for evacuating patients from Southern and Central African region and beyond.
MARS employs over 200 highly qualified professionals including doctors, nurses, ambulance technicians and medical dispatchers. These medical personnel have extensive experience and training in emergency evacuation and are on stand by 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
MARS has a fleet of over 24 critical care road ambulances stationed at MARS bases across Zimbabwe. The fleet is equipped to advanced life support levels and highly trained medical teams are able to oxygenate, intubate, cardiovert and ventilate among other patient intervention measures. All MARS ambulances carry a full range of spinal immobilisation equipment. MARS has the ability to cater for new-borns, paediatrics and adults. The road ambulances have responded to over 200,000 medical emergencies in Zimbabwe.
MARS has a dedicated air ambulance stationed 24/7 at Harare International Airport for medical evacuation flights. The King Air 200 is permanently configured as an Intensive Care Air Ambulance and has a dual life port system on board. To date the Air Ambulance has performed over 2,750 successful evacuations.
MARS Training school is accredited to the Southern African Resuscitation Council and affiliated to the American Heart Association. To date MARS has trained over 15,000 people in emergency care.
MARS is also a subsidiary of EcoCash Holdings Zimbabwe Limited, the same group as EcoSure. That matters, because it means EcoSureMed is not buying ambulance cover from a stranger. It is buying it from a sister company.
For the customer, that should mean faster dispatch, fewer disputes about who pays, and no argument at the roadside about whether your cover is valid.
But the real value is this: ambulance services in Zimbabwe can cost as much as USD 150 per trip, according to Moovah’s partnership with MARS in 2024. For just USD 1 per month, or USD 12 per year, Moovah customers can subscribe to MARS ambulance cover.
A single ambulance trip at $150 is 30 months of EcoSureMed Basic premiums at $5. A single ICU transfer by air can cost thousands. If you have ever watched a family try to raise $150 in two hours to move a mother from a district hospital to a central hospital, you know why ambulance cover is not a nice-to-have. It is life or death.
The Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe recorded 51,924 road accidents last year, most of which occurred during the festive period. That is why Moovah partnered MARS to offer affordable emergency ambulance services for motorists during the rainy season and festive period.
EcoSureMed extends that logic to illness, not just accidents. A diabetic who collapses at home, a hypertensive who has a stroke, a pregnant woman who bleeds, a child with severe malaria – all of them need an ambulance, not a taxi, not a neighbour’s car.
WHAT US$5, US$7 AND US$10 ACTUALLY BUY
EcoSureMed offers three monthly packages: Basic at US$5, Plus at US$7 and Prime at US$10.
The packages include health tips and cover for virtual and in-person medical consultations, medication, diagnostic services and hospitalisation.
Plus and Prime members also receive maternity cover, discounts on chronic medication and support to help them stay on treatment for conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.
All three packages include EcoSure funeral cover of up to US$1,500 in the event of death.
Let us be precise about what that means, and what it does not mean.
At $5 Basic, you get the entry point: health tips, virtual and in-person consultations, medication, diagnostics, hospitalisation, plus MARS ambulance, plus airtime and data in hospital, plus emergency loan access, plus $1,500 funeral cover.
At $7 Plus, you add maternity cover, discounts on chronic medication, and support to stay on treatment for diabetes and hypertension.
At $10 Prime, you get the highest level of the same structure, presumably with higher limits for consultations, medication, diagnostics and hospitalisation, although EcoSure Health has not yet published the detailed benefit limits, sub-limits, waiting periods, or exclusions for each tier.
This newspaper has asked EcoSure Health to publish those details, because they are the difference between a product that works and a product that disappoints.
For example: how many consultations per year? Is medication covered up to $50, $100, $200? Are diagnostics limited to basic blood tests, or do they include scans, X-rays, ultrasounds? Is hospitalisation covered for 5 days, 10 days, 30 days? Is there a waiting period for maternity, for chronic conditions, for hospitalisation? Are pre-existing conditions covered?
Those are not criticisms. They are the questions any serious newspaper must ask, because Zimbabweans have been burned before by insurance products that promised a lot and paid a little.
EcoSure Health’s existing medical aid plans show the gap EcoSureMed is trying to fill. Its Starter plan starts from US$14 per month, Starter Plus from US$29, Standard from US$61, Classic from US$98, Active from US$136, Vitality from US$167.
EcoSureMed at $5 is therefore less than half the price of EcoSure Health’s own cheapest traditional medical aid plan. That can only work if the benefits are capped, if the network is narrow, if virtual consultations are used heavily, and if the volume is huge.
That is the micro-insurance model: low premium, high volume, tight controls, digital distribution. It works if 500,000 people pay $5 a month. It does not work if only 5,000 people pay $5 a month and they are all sick.
MATERNITY, DIABETES AND HYPERTENSION: THE THREE TESTS
Plus and Prime members receive maternity cover, discounts on chronic medication and support to help them stay on treatment for diabetes and hypertension.
Those three are not random. They are the three conditions that break Zimbabwean families financially and medically.
Maternity: The Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey shows maternal mortality dropping dramatically from 651 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2015 to 212 in 2024. That is progress, but 212 is still high. A pregnant woman who cannot afford antenatal care, who cannot afford transport to hospital, who cannot afford a Caesarean if she needs one, is at risk. Maternity cover at $7 could be the difference between a home delivery with no skilled attendant and a hospital delivery with a midwife.
Diabetes and hypertension: These are the silent killers of Zimbabwe’s working age population. They do not kill in a day. They kill over years, through strokes, heart attacks, kidney failure, amputations. They require daily medication, for life. If you stop taking your hypertension tablets because you cannot afford them this month, you may have a stroke next month. A discount on chronic medication, plus support to stay on treatment, is therefore not a soft benefit. It is prevention.
EcoSure Health has not yet said what that support looks like: is it SMS reminders, is it a nurse calling you, is it a refill at a pharmacy, is it a discount of 10 percent, 20 percent, 50 percent? Those details will determine whether a diabetic in Chitungwiza actually stays on treatment, or whether the benefit is just a line in a brochure.
The same applies to health tips. Health tips sound trivial, but for a domestic worker in Borrowdale, a trader in Mbare, a farmer in Guruve, a health tip in Shona, in Ndebele, on WhatsApp, about how to spot a stroke, how to manage sugar, how to prepare for a clinic visit, can be the first health education they have ever received.
WHO IS ECOSUREMED REALLY FOR?
EcoSureMed is open to all Zimbabweans, including informal-sector workers, traders, farmers, domestic workers, small business owners and families who have struggled to afford conventional medical cover.
That list is deliberate. It is the informal economy.
ZIMSTAT’s Second Quarter 2025 Labour Force Survey found that of 3.19 million employed people, 1.86 million, or 58.5 percent, were employed informally. Fewer than 900,000 are in formal employment with benefits.
The informal sector is not a fringe. It is the economy. It is the woman selling tomatoes in Mbare, the man fixing phones in Harare CBD, the cross-border trader going to South Africa, the farmer selling horticulture in Marondera, the domestic worker cleaning a house in Avondale, the kombi driver, the hairdresser, the builder.
None of them have employer medical aid. None of them have a payslip that can be deducted automatically. All of them can pay $5 on EcoCash, on _900#, if they choose to.
EcoSure Health said it developed the product to reduce the financial and practical barriers that keep people from seeking medical care.
It added that EcoSureMed gives employers an affordable way to provide healthcare cover for their staff, including domestic workers who may have no employer-sponsored cover.
That employer angle is crucial, and it is often missed.
A middle-class family in Harare that employs a domestic worker, a gardener, and a driver, often has medical aid for themselves, but nothing for the people who work in their home. If the domestic worker falls ill, the family pays out of pocket, or the worker goes without care, or the worker is fired because she is sick.
At $5 a month, $60 a year, an employer can cover a domestic worker for consultations, medication, diagnostics, hospitalisation, ambulance, and funeral. That is less than the cost of one dinner out in Harare. It is a moral and practical decision that is now affordable.
The same applies to a small business owner: a shop in Bulawayo with five staff, a farm in Mazowe with ten workers, a school in Gweru with three support staff. None of them can afford $55 a month per employee for traditional medical aid. All of them could afford $5 a month per employee for EcoSureMed, if the benefits are real.
THE DIASPORA ANGLE: PAYING FROM LONDON FOR A MOTHER IN MUTARE
Zimbabweans living abroad can also use the product to arrange cover for relatives back home, helping them manage unexpected medical expenses.
That is the second big market for EcoSureMed, and it may be the one that makes it work financially.
Zimbabwe’s diaspora is estimated at over 3 million people, with more than half in South Africa. Remittances are a lifeline. Every month, diaspora Zimbabweans send money home for school fees, for rent, for groceries, and, most painfully, for medical emergencies.
The current system is chaotic: a mother in Mutare calls her daughter in London, says she needs $200 for a scan, the daughter sends $200 on Mukuru, WorldRemit, or EcoCash, the mother goes to hospital, the money runs out, she calls again, the daughter sends again. No one knows what the total cost will be. No one knows if the money was spent on the scan or on transport or on food.
EcoSureMed changes that. A daughter in London can dial, or WhatsApp, or go online, pay $5 or $7 or $10 a month for her mother, and know that her mother has cover for consultations, medication, diagnostics, hospitalisation, and ambulance. When her mother is hospitalised, she gets airtime and data to call her daughter, to tell her what is happening. When her mother dies, there is $1,500 funeral cover.
EcoSure has already tested this model with funeral cover. EcoSure Diaspora Cover offers benefits of up to US$15,000 from monthly premiums starting from as low as US$12. For Zimbabweans living in South Africa, premiums start from R54 per month, with cover of up to R150,000 or full repatriation services to Zimbabwe.
EcoSureMed extends that diaspora logic from death to life. It allows a diaspora Zimbabwean to buy peace of mind, not just a funeral.
That is also why registration is digital: dial _900# or contact EcoSureMed on WhatsApp at 0778 775 200. A diaspora customer does not need to visit an Econet shop in Harare. They can register from Johannesburg, from London, from Harare, from anywhere with a phone.
FROM FUNERAL TO LIFE: THE CULTURAL SHIFT ECOSURE IS ASKING FOR
EcoSure Health is calling for a decisive shift from funeral cover, which pays out after death, to medical cover that preserves life, and for families to move beyond the cultural barriers that have kept funeral cover the default.
That is a bold statement, and it is the heart of the product.
It is also a statement that will make some people uncomfortable, because it challenges a deeply held belief: that a dignified funeral is the ultimate proof of love, of respect, of ubuntu.
In Zimbabwe, a funeral is not a private event. It is a community event. It is where the family is judged. If the coffin is cheap, if there is no bus, if there is no food, if the grave is not marked, the family is shamed. If the funeral is dignified, the family is honoured, even if the person died because they could not afford a $600 specialist consultation.
EcoSure Health is saying: what if we honoured life the same way we honour death? What if we paid $5 a month to keep a mother alive, with the same discipline we pay $11 a month to bury her?
That is not just an insurance product. That is a cultural argument.
It will only work if EcoSureMed keeps its funeral cover. And it does: all three packages include EcoSure funeral cover of up to US$1,500. EcoSure is not asking families to abandon funeral cover. It is asking them to add medical cover to funeral cover, in the same product, for a price they can afford.
That is smart. It respects culture while changing it. It says: you do not have to choose between a dignified death and a dignified life. You can have both, for $5.
THE GOVERNMENT CONTEXT: NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE IS COMING, BUT NOT YET
EcoSureMed launches into a health system in transition.
Zimbabwe plans to launch its National Health Insurance in June 2026 to expand universal health coverage, funded through earmarked taxes. With only 13 percent covered by medical aid in some counts, the NHI will target the uninsured majority, aiming to cut out-of-pocket costs and strengthen equity in health care.
Under NHI, healthcare costs – from consultations and diagnostic tests to treatments and even surgeries – would be covered, eliminating the need for out-of-pocket payments. The financing model will rely on existing and new taxes such as the sugar and airtime levies, which the government seeks to ring-fence specifically for health, rather than going into general Treasury revenue.
The Minister of Health, Dr Douglas Mombeshora, has emphasised the scheme’s role in advancing Universal Health Coverage by ensuring that all citizens can access health services without financial hardship.
The government has allocated ZiG30.4 billion to health in the 2026 National Budget, representing 15 percent of total expenditure in line with the Abuja Declaration target. The Community Working Group on Health has previously warned that the allocation remains not comprehensively adequate to address urgent primary healthcare needs.
NHI is a good idea. But it is not here yet. It has been promised for years. It will take years to implement, to enrol millions, to build the systems, to pay providers.
EcoSureMed is a private sector bridge. It does not replace NHI. It does not replace public hospitals. It gives a family a private option today, for $5, while they wait for NHI tomorrow.
That bridge will only work if EcoSureMed and NHI can coexist, if EcoSureMed does not cherry-pick the healthiest customers and leave the sickest for the public system, and if the government does not see EcoSureMed as competition but as a partner in universal health coverage.
THE RISKS: LAPSE, TRUST, AND THE HISTORY OF ECOSURE
No honest newspaper can write about EcoSureMed without writing about trust.
EcoSure has a history of auto-enrollment controversies. In 2019, subscribers complained of being charged without verified consent. Econet cited its terms.
A recent independent analysis using IPEC Life Assurance Sector Reports 2021 to 2025 claimed that 47.6 percent of policies lapse every quarter in Q4 2025, that 9 in 10 never-used policies industrywide are Econet’s, and that 99.2 percent of 2023 insurance revenue came from policies that were never used.
That analysis, by Deep Dive Data, also said: EcoSure is a genuine product from a registered insurer supervised by IPEC. If you hold an active policy and a covered event occurs, you are entitled to claim. The question is whether you know you hold one.
That is the risk for EcoSureMed. If a customer buys EcoSureMed as part of a data bundle, or as part of an EcoCash transaction, and does not know they have it, or does not know how to claim, or lets it lapse because they switched bundles, then the product fails, even if the premium is $5.
EcoSure Health must be transparent: how will customers know they are covered? How will they claim? How long does a claim take? What is the lapse rate for EcoSureMed in the first three months, six months, twelve months? How many hospitalisations were covered, how many were denied, and why?
The second risk is the provider network. EcoSure Health says it partners with the most reputable health institutions both within Zimbabwe and internationally. But which institutions? Are they in Harare only, or also in Bulawayo, Mutare, Gweru, Masvingo, Kwekwe, Chitungwiza, Chinhoyi? Can a farmer in Guruve use EcoSureMed at his local clinic, or must he travel to Harare? Can a trader in Mbare use it at a local private clinic, or must she go to a central hospital?
If the network is narrow, EcoSureMed will be a Harare product, not a Zimbabwe product.
The third risk is the emergency loan. If the loan is at high interest, if it is collected aggressively, if it is deducted from EcoCash without consent, it will destroy trust. EcoSure Health must publish the loan terms: interest rate, repayment period, maximum amount, and what happens if you default.
The fourth risk is the $1,500 funeral cover. Is $1,500 enough for a dignified funeral in 2026? EcoSure’s own Premium funeral package pays $6,250 for $8.50 a month. EcoSureMed pays $1,500 for $5 a month, but that $5 also has to pay for medical cover, ambulance, airtime, data, and administration. Is $1,500 enough? For a family that would otherwise have nothing, $1,500 is a lot. For a family that expects a bus, a coffin, food for 200 mourners, and a grave, $1,500 may not be enough. EcoSure Health should be clear: is $1,500 cash, or is it a funeral service? Can a family top up?
WHAT TO WATCH NEXT
One, the benefit limits. EcoSure Health must publish the full schedule: how many consultations, how much medication, how much diagnostics, how many hospital days, what waiting periods, what exclusions.
Two, the provider network. Which hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, laboratories are in network? Where are they? Can a member use any provider, or only a listed provider?
Three, the claim experience. How long does it take to get authorisation for a consultation, for a scan, for hospitalisation? Can a member get authorisation on WhatsApp at 0778 775 200, or must they call _900# and wait?
Four, the MARS response time. How quickly does MARS arrive in Harare, in Bulawayo, in rural areas? What is the average response time, and how is it measured?
Five, the lapse rate. How many people who sign up in month one are still paying in month six, month twelve? If the lapse rate is 47.6 percent per quarter, EcoSureMed will not change anything.
Six, the employer uptake. How many employers, how many domestic workers, how many small businesses sign up in the first six months? That will tell us if EcoSureMed is a real employer product or just a consumer product.
Seven, the diaspora uptake. How many Zimbabweans abroad buy EcoSureMed for relatives back home? That will tell us if the diaspora market is real.
Eight, the health outcomes. How many members with diabetes and hypertension stay on treatment? How many pregnant women deliver in hospital? How many hospitalisations were prevented by early consultation? Those are the outcomes that matter, not just sales.
For now, the headline stands: a Zimbabwean company, using a Zimbabwean mobile network, a Zimbabwean ambulance service, and a Zimbabwean insurance brand, has built a product that says a life is worth $5 a month.
That is not just an insurance launch. That is a challenge to a culture that has paid for death more faithfully than it has paid for life.
If EcoSureMed works, if the benefits are real, if the claims are paid quickly, if the ambulance arrives, if the mother in Mutare can call her daughter in London from her hospital bed because she has airtime, then Ganda’s story will not repeat.
If it does not work, if the limits are too low, if the network is too narrow, if the loans trap families, if the lapse rate is high, then EcoSureMed will be another product that promised life and delivered a funeral.
The choice is now in the hands of EcoSure Health, and in the hands of the families who must decide: will we pay $5 for life, as faithfully as we have paid for death?
Every life matters, EcoSure Health said. That is the promise. Now it must prove it.
Comments