The COVID-19 pandemic has made employees more cognizant of medical expenses that can show up unannounced. And for those working in the SMB sector, the salary is rarely adequate to meet the ever-rising healthcare expenses. Despite being the backbone of the Indian economy, Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) often fail to cater to the security needs of employees. From cash crunch to dealing with large insurance companies, several factors cause hindrance for SMBs to avail a health security cover for their employees. As a result, businesses find it difficult to retain employees who are looking for a sense of security.
To address the issue, Yogesh Agarwal and Kulin Shah founded Onsurity in 2020, a monthly subscription-based employee healthcare platform covering health cover and wellness benefits for employees and their parents.
While talking to SMBs across segments, the founder duo realised that today’s SMBs are directly competing with large corporates, MNCs for their talent attraction & retention. However they still struggle to provide adequate employee benefits as compared to their large peers. The objective to launch Onsurity is to create a platform for SMBs to solve their employee healthcare needs.
Smart healthcare solutions for SMEs
Onsurity is the only healthtech company in India providing a monthly membership model to SMEs, MSMEs, startups, and emerging businesses. The aim is to democratise healthcare and give all businesses, irrespective of their size and scale, a chance to ensure easy access to the best healthcare solutions for all their on-roll and off-roll employees. Founders of Onsurity believe that a sense of security to employees and their families in terms of health benefits will in turn help increase productivity, employee retention, and enable businesses to build a satisfied workforce.
Onsurity allows organisations to offer continuity health benefits even after an employee leaves the organisation. There are several in-app benefits like doctor teleconsultations, mental wellness, dental benefits, discounted medicines, and health check-ups, making it a comprehensive preventive care. Monthly healthcare membership of Onsurity can also be extended to siblings (Onsurity is only one to provide this segment) as well as parents & inlaws
“With our mobile application, we are trying to create an embedded healthcare approach. Our larger goal is also to deal with the stigma that surrounds various physical and mental illnesses. As a tech player in this area, we want to work towards building a culture where employees get access to comprehensive healthcare solutions without invading their privacy,” says Kulin.
Key differentiator
One of the biggest advantages for Onsurity is that it is a first-of-its-kind player in the field. There are market alternatives but the founders claim that it is the only brand that provides a 360-degree comprehensive healthcare package on a monthly subscription model.
“We are the only company in India with a subscription-like model for health care products. This kind of product is ideal for businesses with a small workforce. For example, a female entrepreneur running a fashion boutique can visit our platform and purchase healthcare membership for the staff members. This reduces the need to approach multiple vendors or even simplifies legal formalities to a great extent,” says Yogesh.
With a simple digital dashboard, the platform enables easy-for-all access to healthcare solutions.
Collaborating with Microsoft
Onsurity has been collaborating with large enterprises not for their employees but for their allied businesses which are SMEs. One such example is Microsoft. Microsoft has been helping Onsurity by providing access to their clients which are SMEs as well as authorised partners who are looking to invest in smart group healthcare products for its employees. The collaboration with Microsoft has benefited Onsurity to a great extent in terms of reaching out to a larger audience.
“As a Microsoft customer ourselves, we see a lot of potential in this collaboration. The fact that there are several Microsoft customers like us who might be interested in investing in an employee health solution encouraged us to continue this partnership. Also, companies like Microsoft are changemakers in the tech space and allow us to match our tech integrations with the kind of technology that they have. Hence, we became not just health partners but healthtech partners to Microsoft,” shares Kulin.
Onsurity is listed on the Microsoft app store providing healthcare benefits to India’s workforce. The app is also integrated with Teams, to be on a One-Click journey for healthcare assistance. This helps Onsurity to get a wider range of companies to capture and support their workforce with monthly affordable healthcare solutions.
The startup also uses Microsoft Azure services concerning HIPAA compliance procedures which is The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and sets the standard for sensitive patient data protection.
From creating awareness to building tools within the Microsoft systems, Onsurity founders are looking at continuing this partnership with Microsoft at multiple levels.