Inspiration
Paying a health insurance premium feels like money going down the drain. Customers don't see where their money is going, and most of them receive small benefits compared to what they have paid. UpLift aims to change that.
What it does
UpLift is a transparent health insurance platform where users' premiums go into a mutual fund that distributes its returns on investment to the users in the form of dividends. The users can also choose specific, anonymous cases that their contributions can go towards. When a user incurs medical expenses, UpLift covers their costs using money from the fund, allowing others to contribute a portion of their premiums to a resonating cause. As a result, users can choose where their money is used and keep track of how many lives they have affected.
How we built it
UpList was primarily built using Xcode and Swift for iOS. We designed the front end in Sketch before transferring it over to Xcode's storyboard interface. The back end is built in Xcode's Swift programming language, and it links to a Firebase database that stores and maintains all the information on users' accounts.
Challenges we ran into
The initial ideation stage on Saturday afternoon was a bit of struggle for us. Through our team's brainstorming session, we stumbled upon the concept of a mutual fund that also functions as health insurance provider. Once the idea was fleshed out, we hit the ground running.
The first challenge was confirming the financial feasibility of our proposal. The financial member of our team did some research and number-crunching to find the right price points for customers and break-even points for our business. Our insurance premium plans range from $50 to $350 per month, with a standard plan of $200 a month. This is less than the national average premium of $250/month. The break-even for our business is at approximately 8,000 users, with an expense ratio that goes from 80% of inflows and approaches 30% as more users join.
Our other major challenge involved the technical feat of linking our Xcode application with our database. Firebase makes this relatively easy to achieve, but this wasn't something any of our team members had experience with. As a result, we came together to understand the setup and read/write process for Firebase and how we could implement it in Xcode.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
If you know anything about making iOS apps with Xcode, you know that this requires a Mac. However, only one of our team members brought a Mac to the event, so the odds were rather stacked against us. Despite only possessing one machine that we could truly build or product on, we worked smart. Throughout the night, we each took shifts developing the product while other team members slept. We also delegated and distributed all tasks that did not directly require Xcode, such as prototyping, design, and database setup. Our team's effective reaction to the scarcity of resources is something that shows true teamwork, and it's something we're immensely proud of.
What we learned
Our team learned that even when the odds look bleak, we can approach the problem in such a way that tasks are efficiently distributed among all team members. The result is akin to a well-oiled machine with all parts working in harmony. The lesson we took away is that when this level of collaboration is achieved with great team members by your side, anything is possible.
What's next for UpLift
Even after putting so little time into developing UpLift, our team feels that we have made significant progress on an idea that may have some true business potential. We are going to bring this idea back to Texas Convergent, a UT entrepreneurship club that we all help run, and reach out to our VC and Angel sponsors for potential funding. We are ecstatic to see what kind of traction our idea might have outside the realm of this hackathon. Our team sees this as a product that could disrupt the health insurance industry and improve the lives of millions.
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