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Liberty Health sets sights on Africa

Liberty Health is planning to become the largest provider of health insurance in Africa by 2012.

CEO Peter Botha said yesterday it would achieve this by tapping into a market whose growth was being fuelled by local and multinational companies that were including health insurance as part of packages to lure and retain staff.

"We definitely want to be the largest player in the health insurance sphere on the continent in terms of lives under management by 2012," Botha said.

"The continent presents huge opportunities, which, if effectively and efficiently captured, can unlock significant value for our stakeholders."

The company, whose expansion strategy is to follow the African footprint of parent Standard Bank - Africa's largest bank - is operating in nine countries and plans to nearly double this presence to 17 by the end of next year.

It would also more than double lives under management to 750 000 from just over 300 000.

Botha said Liberty Health's largest and most promising market so far was Nigeria, where it had acquired the country's largest private health insurance firm, Total Health Trust (THT), which had about 200 000 members.

"To us, Nigeria is a big growth market and has potential to grow more, because it is not yet as developed or mature as other markets, like (those) in east Africa, for example."

Yesterday, Liberty Group announced Liberty Health's launch of a premium product branded Optimum Global in Nigeria, which would be rolled out to 17 other Africa countries over the next five years.

"Coming shortly after buying THT, this launch has strengthened Liberty Health's presence in Nigeria and gives us a foothold in the healthcare industry in a very important market in Africa," Botha said.

This year alone, the product - offering three benefits with limits ranging from $1m to $2,5m - would be introduced in Kenya, Mozambique, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, he said.

"The vision of Liberty Health is to be a pan-African health business, providing technology health solutions in growing markets (and) the launch of Optimum Global strengthens this growth plan."