Why My Brother and I Built BimaSasa: The Insurance Problem Nobody Was Solving

It started with a WhatsApp message at 11pm.

"Keryl, can you compare these three quotes for me? I need to decide by tomorrow morning."

I was sitting on my couch. Exhausted. Staring at three PDF documents from three different insurers, each formatted completely differently. One had the dental benefit buried on page 4. Another didn't even list the outpatient limit clearly. The third had numbers that didn't add up.

And I thought: there has to be a better way to do this.

Spoiler: there wasn't. So my brother and I built one.

The Problem Nobody Talks About

I've been in the insurance industry in Kenya long enough to know the dirty secret.

Comparing medical insurance quotes is a nightmare. Not just for clients. For brokers too.

Here's what the process looked like before BimaSasa:

1. Client asks for medical insurance options
2. I reach out to 5-8 insurers for quotes
3. Each insurer sends back a quote in their own format -- different layouts, different terminology, different structures
4. I open Excel. Or Google Sheets. Sometimes both.
5. I manually type in every single benefit, limit, exclusion, and premium
6. I try to create a comparison that makes sense
7. Client asks a follow-up question. Back to the spreadsheet.
8. One insurer sends a revised quote. Redo everything.

This process took hours. Sometimes an entire day for a corporate client with multiple options.

And I'm not slow. This is just what it takes when you're comparing apples to mangoes to passion fruits.

The Spreadsheet Graveyard

I had folders full of comparison spreadsheets. Hundreds of them.

Every client got a custom one. Every renewal cycle meant rebuilding from scratch because benefits change, premiums change, insurers restructure their plans.

The worst part? Half the time, the client would glance at my beautiful spreadsheet for about 30 seconds and say, "Just tell me which one is best."

All those hours. For a 30-second glance.

Something was broken.

The real problem wasn't that clients didn't care. It was that the information was too hard to digest. Even when I laid it out neatly, comparing 6 insurers across 20+ benefit categories is overwhelming.

The Phone Call That Changed Everything

One evening I was venting to my brother about a particularly painful comparison exercise. A corporate client wanted quotes from 8 insurers for 200 employees with 4 different plan tiers.

That's 32 plan configurations to compare. Manually.

My brother is a software engineer. He listened. Then he said something that stuck with me:

"Why are you doing this by hand? This is exactly what software is for."

I laughed. "You don't understand insurance."

He said, "You don't understand what's possible with technology."

We were both right. And both wrong.

The First Attempt Was Terrible

Let me be honest. The first version of what became BimaSasa was embarrassing.

My brother built a basic tool that could take structured data and create comparison tables. But the problem was getting structured data in the first place. Insurer quotes come in PDFs, Word docs, emails, sometimes even handwritten notes.

We went back and forth for months. I'd explain how insurance works in Kenya. He'd explain what was technically feasible. We'd argue. Then we'd build something. Then we'd argue more.

The breakthrough came when we stopped trying to automate everything and focused on the one thing that mattered most: making it easy for brokers to compare quotes side by side.

Not perfect. Not fully automated. Just... better than a spreadsheet.

What BimaSasa Actually Does

BimaSasa is a quote comparison tool built specifically for Kenya's insurance market.

That "specifically for Kenya" part matters. A lot.

Because insurance in Kenya isn't like insurance in the US or UK. We have:

• Different regulatory frameworks (IRA Kenya)
• M-Pesa payment integrations
• Unique benefit structures (outpatient vs. inpatient splits, maternity sub-limits, last expense covers)
• Local insurer panels and hospital networks
• Kenyan-specific exclusions and waiting periods

No global InsurTech tool was solving for this. They didn't understand that a client in Nairobi comparing Jubilee, Britam, and AAR needs to see the Nairobi Hospital network status, the maternity waiting period, and whether the dental cover includes orthodontics -- all in one view.

That's what we built.

What We Didn't Build

I want to be clear about what BimaSasa is NOT:

❌ It's not an insurance company. We don't underwrite risk.

❌ It's not a price comparison site where you click "buy now." Insurance is too personal for that.

❌ It's not a replacement for brokers. It's a tool FOR brokers.

This was a deliberate choice. I've seen what happens when you try to sell insurance like it's a pair of shoes on an e-commerce site. People end up with the wrong cover, wrong limits, and they find out when they're lying in a hospital bed.

Insurance needs a human touch. BimaSasa makes that human more efficient.

The Name

"Bima" means insurance in Swahili. "Sasa" means now.

Insurance. Now.

Because that's what everyone wanted. Not insurance next week after I finish the spreadsheet. Insurance now. Clear comparisons now. Decisions now.

My brother suggested it at 2am during one of our late-night building sessions. I think he was half asleep. But it stuck.

What It Means for You

If you're reading this as someone shopping for insurance in Kenya, here's what this means for you:

When you work with a broker who uses BimaSasa, your quote comparison process goes from days to minutes. You get clear, side-by-side comparisons. You see exactly what each plan covers and what it doesn't.

No more guessing. No more "just pick the cheapest one and hope for the best."

If you're a broker reading this -- you know the pain. You've lived it. And you know there had to be a better way.

There is now.

The Journey Continues

We're not done. Not even close.

There are still problems in Kenya's insurance market that need solving. Claims processing is slow. Policy documents are confusing. Renewals are stressful.

But we started where the pain was loudest: comparing quotes. Because if you can't compare properly, you can't choose properly. And if you can't choose properly, everything else falls apart.

My brother and I still argue about features. I still vent about insurer PDF formats. He still says "that's technically feasible but painful to build."

Some things don't change.

But the spreadsheet graveyard? That's getting smaller every day.

Final Word

BimaSasa exists because one exhausted broker and one stubborn engineer refused to accept that the status quo was good enough.

It's not a Silicon Valley story. It's a Nairobi story. Built for Kenyan brokers, Kenyan clients, and Kenyan insurance.

If that resonates with you, I'm glad.

🟢 Want to see BimaSasa in action? Visit BimaSasa and see how it makes insurance comparison simple. Or reach out to Keryl Insurance -- we'll walk you through it personally.