Health insurance · Philippine SME benefits
Hive Health
A Y Combinator startup that did not partner with a health maintenance organization. It bought one. The Insurance Commission licence that lets Hive Health carry risk sits with a company incorporated in 1986 and acquired in 2023.
The letter that takes two days
In the Philippines a covered hospital visit starts with a piece of paper. It is called a Letter of Authorization, an LOA, and without it the admitting desk treats the patient as a cash payer.
Carmina Bayombong, who runs the student lending startup InvestEd Philippines, described what that cost her at a Hive Health event in November 2023. “I kept calling for 2 days for an LOA. And I never got it.” Her verdict on the plan she had been paying for: “It was my decision to go with Hive Health to save a cost, because I don’t want to be spending on nothing.”
Hive Health moved the LOA into an app, where the member requests it and books the consultation in one place. The larger question is who is legally allowed to issue that letter at all.
Thin cover, expensive at the counter
The Philippine Statistics Authority put total health spending at P1.87 trillion in 2025, up 15.1 percent and equal to 6.7 percent of GDP. Households still paid 41.2 percent of current health expenditure out of pocket, with government schemes and compulsory contributory programs accounting for 46.5 percent.
The founders quote a different number from their own thesis research. “For those that are lucky to have an employer-sponsored health plan, the average out-of-pocket spend is at 56%, and Filipinos find it quite difficult to use one’s health plan,” Camille Ang told reporters in 2023. The two figures measure different populations and should not be read as the same claim.
The gap Hive Health went after is narrower than the uninsured. It is the small employer, whose group is too small for a large HMO to underwrite profitably. Ang told ABS-CBN in August 2026 that the effect shows up in her own book: “Forty percent of our customers today have never given HMOs to their employees.” That is not share taken from Maxicare or Intellicare. It is demand that was not being served.
Two students and a thesis
Ang and Jiawen Tang met in graduate school during the pandemic. Ang was taking a joint MBA at Harvard Business School and an MPA in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, after private equity at Macquarie and work with the Philippine government, McKinsey and the Rwanda Development Board. Tang was taking an MBA at Stanford alongside the same Harvard degree, after data work at the IMF, the World Bank and the United Nations.
The company began as their thesis. In March 2021 it took a grand prize in the student business track of the Harvard Business School New Venture Competition, a Dubilier Prize of $50,000. The Harvard Gazette listed it then as “A B2B2C health insurer providing simplified, affordable, and quality healthcare to Filipino employees through a data science-powered platform.” They were in Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 batch within weeks.
Buying the licence
A startup can sell health plans in the Philippines two ways. It can sit on top of somebody else’s licensed HMO as a broker or administrator, where nearly every insurtech starts, or it can hold the licence and carry the claims risk. Hive Health started the first way and did not stay there.
In November 2023 it announced the acquisition of Health Plan Philippines, Inc., known as HPPI, an HMO incorporated in 1986 and a founding member of the Association of Health Maintenance Organizations of the Philippines. “HPPI started in 1986, it started as a family corporation,” HPPI chief executive Natasha Reyes said at the launch.
The company called the deal a first for a Philippine startup, “securing a full insurance license and now 38-year nationwide provider network.” Bubble, the platform the app is built on, put it flatly in a 2024 case study: Hive Health “acquired their partner health insurance company to secure their license and expand their provider network.” Hive Health is the brand. HPPI is the licence.
What it sells now
The product is employer only. No individual can buy it. A company requests a quote and the plan is built on a maximum benefit limit or an annual benefit limit. Cover runs across outpatient, inpatient, emergency and dental care, with teleconsults, mental health sessions, medicine reimbursement and a maternity benefit. Pre-existing conditions are covered from day one, and dependants may include cohabiting and same sex partners. Both are uncommon here. By August 2026 Ang was describing a further step, paying providers on outcomes rather than volume: “It will not be technology first. I think the first would be creating a value-based system.”
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Insurance Commission licence | HPPI’s own site shows it licensed by the Philippine Insurance Commission under certificate HMO-2023-04-R, and a founding member of AHMOPI. A 2026 compilation of the Commission’s November 30, 2025 roster of valid Certificates of Authority lists Health Plan Philippines, Inc. under the Hive Health brand. | Public record |
| Who carries the risk | The licence is held by HPPI, acquired in 2023, not by the Hive Health brand. Bubble’s 2024 case study states that “they serve as an underwriter and have direct relationships with providers.” | Independent |
| Licence number | The Hive Health site lists HMO-2026-04-R; the Commission roster dated November 30, 2025 shows HMO-2023-04-R. A 2026 review reads this as a renewal numbering format, unconfirmed. | Differs from the roster |
| Pre-Series A | $6.5 million announced July 2024, with Gentree Fund and BEENEXT named as key investors. DealStreetAsia reported the round from filings with Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority and put it at no less than $6.5 million. | Public record |
| US SEC Form D | One Form D on EDGAR matches the name: Hive Health, LLC of Naples, Florida, CIK 0002133179, filed May 12, 2026. That issuer is a Florida limited liability company formed in 2022 with unrelated officers. It is a different company. | Not this company |
| Named customers | Five Story Group of Companies, HEPMIL, InvestEd Philippines, NextPay and StorageMart appear in company materials with named staff quoted. No audited count has been published. | Company-stated |
| Scale | July 2024: hundreds of small and medium businesses, client base grown eight times in a year. August 2026: thousands of lives covered, targeting millions within five years. Headcount over 50 in 2024; Tracxn lists 95 as of August 31, 2026. | Company-stated |
| Provider network | The 1,700 facility figure is consistent everywhere. The doctor count is not: releases in 2023 and 2024 and one 2026 company page say over 60,000, while the homepage, the provider page and HPPI’s site say 20,000 or more. | Company figures disagree |
Read plainly: the licensure question, the one that separates a real risk carrier from a storefront, has a clean answer here. Hive Health owns a licensed HMO and has owned it since 2023. Size is what is missing. Hundreds of employers and thousands of lives are company phrasings, filed nowhere a regulator or auditor would check.
What to watch
- A Series A. The last round on record closed in July 2024 and data providers still rank the company at seed.
- The Commission’s rising paid-up capital floor for HMOs, reported as about P100 million by the end of 2025 and P200 million by 2028.
- Whether the licence number on the company site settles to match the Commission roster.
- A published member count, or HPPI statutory financials, in place of the phrase about lives covered.
- Whether the outcome-based provider contracts described in August 2026 become signed.
In their words
“Forty percent of our customers today have never given HMOs to their employees.”
Camille Ang, co-founder and CEO, ABS-CBN News, 2026 · Independent
“I think that’s one thing AI cannot replace, it’s human empathy.”
Camille Ang, ABS-CBN News, 2026 · Independent
“I hope 10 years from now, we won’t be remembered as building just a tech company. I hope we are remembered for radically changing healthcare access in the Philippines for millions of lives.”
Camille Ang, ABS-CBN News, 2026 · Independent
“Our goal is to leverage tech and data to make quality healthcare more affordable and easier to use, especially for the underserved SME segment.”
Jiawen Tang, co-founder and president, Newsbytes.PH, 2023 · Independent
“We have just begun the hard work of making healthcare radically more accessible.”
Camille Ang, Newsbytes.PH, 2023 · Independent
“HPPI started in 1986, it started as a family corporation.”
Natasha Reyes, CEO of HPPI, Hive Health media launch, 2023 · Company
“It was my decision to go with Hive Health to save a cost, because I don’t want to be spending on nothing.”
Carmina Bayombong, CEO of InvestEd Philippines and a customer, Hive Health media launch, 2023 · Customer, company-published
“We believe that they can create a legendary long-lasting company.”
Dirk van Quaquebeke, managing partner, BEENEXT, 2024 funding release · Investor
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordHPPI licence notice, Insurance Commission HMO-2023-04-R
- Public recordForm D, Hive Health, LLC, CIK 0002133179 (unrelated Florida issuer)
- Public recordHBS New Venture Competition 2021 winners, Dubilier Prize
- IndependentHealth tech startup eyes becoming Operating System for stakeholders
- IndependentHive Health’s digital platform promises faster insurance policy processing for SMEs
- IndependentUS-founded Pinoy insurance startup acquires HMO, eyes local SMEs
- IndependentHive Health raises $6.5 million to transform HMO access for more SMEs
- IndependentHive Health Uses Bubble to Modernize Filipino Healthcare
- IndependentHive Health HMO 2026: SME Plans From 3 Employees
- IndependentComplete List of Licensed HMOs in the Philippines 2026
- CompanyTransforming Healthcare Access for SMEs: Announcing our $6.5M raise
- CompanyIntroduction to Hive Health at our Media Launch (2023)
- CompanyHive Health home page, benefits page and about page
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
