With a collective work experience of 35 years between them, Aniruddha Sen and Dhiraj Goel founded Kenko Health in 2019. Their experiences in the hospitality and insurance sector and being certified actuaries with over 20 years of experience in insurance underwriting helped them understand the market.
Working closely in the insurance sector made the duo realise that it has hit some stasis. The socio-economic situation of ordinary Indians has changed as rapidly as the evolution of technology. However, traditional insurance establishments struggled to keep up with these changes. Not much is done to incorporate disruptive and futuristic ideas that could benefit both the insurer and the customer. Seeing this gap in the market, Kenko was born.
Kenko is a Japanese word for health. It stands for holistic health, and that is something the company has consciously tried to incorporate into its plans. The idea was simple- to offer a one-stop healthcare platform that provides quick, easy, and hassle-free healthcare financing solutions using technology.
To shape this vision into a comprehensive Insurtech firm took time, effort, hard work, and commitment. It took time before insurance companies saw weight in their radical vision. After spending around 18 months in research and brainstorming, they took the idea to several insurance companies to do a tie-up to provide complimentary hospitalisation coverage to their subscribers.
But What Does Kenko Do?
The company offers a comprehensive monthly health plan with subscription amounts ranging from Rs.299 to Rs. 1999 a month. Apart from the hospitalisation coverage provided, they also cover OPD expenses. Routine medical costs of medicines, doctor visits, diagnostic tests, medical costs incurred on seasonal fever, cold, minor niggles; services traditionally left out of health coverage plans in India are also provided.
Their Kenko Scores are calculated based on their lifestyle, medical history, and health issues. With a scoring range of 1-1000, anyone with above 700Kenko scores is considered ‘very good’ and above 780 is excellent. A Kenko Score below 400 is a cause for concern.
“Technology is one leg on which our innovation stands. The other leg is an age-old tool that has always been at our disposal- empathy. We want to put ourselves in the place of our users, understand their concerns and urgencies, and respond to them inhumane and transparent ways.” shares Aniruddha Sen, Co-founder of Kenko.
Kenko is a one-stop healthcare platform powered by technology and empathy. It enables users to access and finance all their healthcare services in a single, easy-to-use package – the Kenko app.
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With this app, users can book or order medicines, lab tests, doctor consultations (both online and offline), hospital beds, at-home care, and more. And while they’re at it, users get to save big on all these expenses. This is a big step forward for health coverage in India which has been too fixated on covering emergency and hospitalisation bills alone.
The bite-sized, monthly subscription model is another factor that sets Kenko apart. Users don’t have to worry about committing to hefty annual premiums anymore. They can pay as they go, every month, and cancel their subscription at any time. They’ve done away with abrasive concepts like waiting periods, hidden exclusions, ridiculous sub-limits, and other tropes common in traditional health coverage plans to enhance the user journey further.
This Is What The Claims Process Looks Like
All insurance claims are taxing with paperwork, endless conversations with third-part agents, and repeated and complex follow-up that consume time, energy, and money. The Kenko interface of all benefits provided is purely digital, making the entire process easier.
Using technology to make documentation uploads, proof-processing, direct benefit transfers, risk calculation, and plan recommendations makes the entire user journey hassle-free by using the faster and superior wisdom of AI/ML.
In the case of hospitalisations, the user only has to alert the team on the app and share the details. The hospital admission costs will be transferred on day 1 of admission. The rest of the bill amount is transferred by the time of discharge. All of this ensures that the user can focus completely on healing without worrying about the finances.
Even with medicines, doctor visits, or lab tests, the user simply has to search for their preferred options on the app. The app lets them pay a discounted price for their order as per their chosen health plan. In the rare case where they can’t find what they’re looking for through Kenko’s testing partners, doctor networks, or delivery partners, they can place their orders outside the app and get the costs reimbursed.
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Insights Into The Way Kenko Has Been Operating Their Business
Kenko aims to include a broad spectrum of subscribers from Tier II and Tier III cities over and above, providing service to people in Metro cities. They believe in offering services even to those beyond the metro cities. Data shows that 80% of customers from Tier-II and Tier-III cities get their health coverage digitally, while only 69% do so from Tier-I cities.
The socio-economic landscape of Tier II and Tier III cities has changed a lot over the years. Access to digital resources has shot up, and courtesy of the COVID 19 pandemic, people are more open about the need to cover health risks in advance. People have begun to realise that paying for health issues when they arise is costlier than covering them in advance by paying bite-sized monthly subscriptions.
Apart from metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore, demand in cities like Patna, Indore, Lucknow, and Haryana has been surprisingly huge.
Regarding the use of technology in the Insurtech business, Dhiraj Goel, co-founder of Kenko shared, “The time has come to stop treating technology as a threat and start seeing it as an opportunity. We now have more powerful means at our disposal to shake the status quo in health coverage and build something worthwhile for both the customer and the insurer.”
The biggest challenge for the company was the distrust of digital media. Most Indians prefer brick-and-mortar setups over online outfits when it comes to healthcare and finances. Largely due to the Pandemic, and partly because of the recent success of digital start-ups, that reservation has lifted. With the help of technology, access to doctors, medicines, lab tests and hospitals are higher than before.
Financial services like health coverage are sensitive domains for fraud and malpractices. Keeping that in mind, Kenko is constantly building and improving its systems to detect fraud and misuse. They use different AI-based tech pieces ranging from Computer Vision to Natural Language algorithms for their proprietary solution.
Quality data is crucial for pricing and risk-assessment models. In the present setup, most data is hard to come by. Most data are drawn from second-hand sources. Machine learning and enhanced technologies are trying to mount this challenge.
With about 1 L lives under care and more than 40 corporate clients, Kenko caters to individual customers or families and small, medium, and large businesses looking to cover their employees. They handle about 1000 OPD orders every month. Their month-on-month growth rate is 100%.
Notable subscribers to their group health plans include Shaadi.com, Rebel Foods, and Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital.
Investment Received By Kenko’s & Their Plan For The Future
Kenko has led 2 rounds of funding and has seen seasoned investors sharing their vision. In August 2021, they raised $1.7 million as part of their pre-Series A round co-led by BEENEXT and Orios as co-lead investors and 9Unicorns ventures as participating investors. After that, in February 2022, they again raised $12 million in their Series-A funding led by Sequoia Capital India and supported by their pre-existing investors mentioned above. Currently, they’re preparing for their Series-B funding.
Kenko aims to evolve into a veritable marketplace for all healthcare needs of its users. The idea is to enable users to access all things healthcare in more straightforward and more affordable ways. Users can access it all on a single platform, from diapers to dieticians and tampons to thermometers.
New partnerships are cemented in distribution, product enhancement, OPD services, Computer Vision/AI capabilities, etc. Some of the critical collaborations so far are with ImpactGuru for crowdsourcing in case of very large medical bills; Sova Health, a diet and nutrition management platform; SabkaDentist for dental coverage; Nova Benefits, an employee benefits platform, and more. They’re current partners with MedPay and Medulance for hassle-free medicine delivery and emergency ambulance services for their customers.
The philosophy that Kenko tries to embody is centred on empathy. They don’t want to look at their users as mere file numbers or portals for profiteering. What users seek is genuine assistance and care. Kenko recognises this and endeavours to meet these expectations.
The customer delight team prides itself on its transparency and politeness while dealing with users, while many such services are left wanting when it comes to customer service and relationships. At Kenko, users will be heard and seen and their needs recognised.
In the marketing efforts, too, they try to give a personal, empathetic touch while dealing with subscribers. They are multilingual in their marketing efforts to appeal to our users’ diverse regional sensibilities and use a wide range of digital-first formats.
