Over 400,000 teachers and their dependents are stuck with Minet Kenya medical insurance despite growing dissatisfaction with the service and stalled transition to a new public health provider. The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has revealed that efforts to attract other insurance providers have failed and Minet is the only option.
TSC CEO Nancy Macharia told the Education Committee that the current Minet-led consortium contract—set to expire on November 30, 2025—has not been challenged in successive tenders. “We advertise for insurance but no one comes. Maybe it’s our size or the number of teachers we represent. Still no one insures us,” Macharia said, suggesting that the lack of competition might be due to the size and complexity of the scheme.
TSC’s efforts to migrate teachers to the Social Health Authority (SHA) have also stalled. According to Macharia, SHA declined to enroll teachers due to inadequate infrastructure across the country. SHA was supposed to replace the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) as the sole provider of public servant health coverage under a new government directive but it currently lacks the capacity to absorb the teaching force.
To make matters worse, the commission is grappling with delayed Treasury disbursements. While the second policy year has been fully paid, TSC owes the consortium Sh11.2 billion for the first and second quarters of the third policy year which started in December 2024 and March 2025 respectively. The delay is threatening to deny teachers access to health services as hospitals may start turning them away due to unpaid claims.
Also, the National Assembly has not allocated Sh1.5 billion for Group Life Insurance, a key benefit that supports the families of deceased teachers. This is causing further anxiety among teacher unions and beneficiaries.
In a letter dated December 18, 2024, TSC wrote to the State Department for Medical Services that the National Treasury had directed them to terminate the Minet contract immediately as part of the transition to SHA. But TSC expressed reservations about the sudden move citing the comprehensive and tailored benefits the current scheme offers.Since 2015, the Minet scheme has been offering unlimited outpatient services, inpatient cover of Sh1 million to Sh3 million and benefits such as dental, optical, maternity, last expense and medical evacuations—local and international.
TSC warns that a sudden shift to SHA without similar benefits will compromise the care of over 400,000 teachers currently covered and another 54,000 who will join the service by January 2025.
