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TOTAL ONT FEES PAID
DEEP DIVE DATAPRODUCT TEARDOWN · INSURANCE
The $2 ONT fee that quietlybecame an $11 million question.
96%
FEE / DEVICE VALUE
7+ yrs
FEE RAN UNCHECKED
~$11.2M
EST. TOTAL COLLECTED
SWIPE TO READ ›
THE PRODUCT
Liquid Home Zimbabwe — formerly ZOL, the country's dominant fixed broadband provider — charged a monthly line item called "ONT Insurance" on fibre subscriber invoices.
ONT stands for Optical Network Terminal: the router-like device installed at the customer's premises. The fee was roughly $2/month, applied automatically, framed as cover against damage, loss, or theft of the device.
The pre-deduction problem: the fee was deducted from account credit before the data package was applied — a subscriber topping up expecting their package to activate would find the balance reduced by the insurance charge first.
THIS IS NOT HOW INSURANCE IS PRICED
96% of the device's value, every year
96%
Annual premium as a share of the insured asset's value
| ONT replacement cost | ~$25 |
| Annual fee charged | $24 |
| Months to pay full device value | 12.5 |
| Total paid over 5 years | $120 |
A well-priced policy on a $25 device might imply a premium of $0.40–$0.70/month. At $2/month, the subscriber paid the full replacement cost of the ONT every 12.5 months — and the charge continued indefinitely.
SCALE
A small fee, a large base, a long time
| 2018 · ~39,000 subs | $936K |
| 2020 · ~47,000 subs | $1.13M |
| 2022 · ~68,000 subs | $1.63M |
| 2024 · ~79,000 subs | $1.90M |
| 2025 (9 mo.) · ~80,000 subs | $1.44M |
| Total, 2018–2025 | ~$11.2M |
Using POTRAZ quarterly subscriber data as a proxy, conservative modelling (flat $2/month, fibre subscribers only) puts total collection since 2018 at roughly $11.2 million.
THE MULTIPLIER
$11.2M could replace the modem base 448 times over
$11,200,000 ÷ $25 per modem = 448,000 modems. The total premiums collected could theoretically have replaced every modem in Liquid Home's subscriber base multiple times.
IPEC — the Insurance and Pensions Commission of Zimbabwe — licenses entities that underwrite insurance risk. Collecting a fee described as "insurance," on behalf of customers, without holding such a licence is the operating definition of unlicensed insurance. IPEC records do not show Liquid Home holding a short-term insurance licence during the period the product was described as insurance.
PRIMARY SOURCE
The rename happened in a single billing cycle
| Nov 17–Dec 16, 2023 | "ONT Insurance" |
| Dec 17, 2023–Jan 16, 2024 | "ONT Equipment Guarantee fee" |
Same account (ZOL-XXXXXX-59). Same amount: ZWL 16,521.74 ex. VAT, on both invoices. Different description. Time elapsed: one billing cycle.
If the product had genuinely been a "guarantee" all along, there would have been no reason to rename it. The rename itself is evidence the original description was understood to be problematic.
THE TIMELINE
Insurance became a "guarantee." The fee stayed.
- May 2018: "ZOL got some hidden fees eg modem rental and insurance" — earliest documented public complaint.
- Jul 2022: Techzim reports "modem insurance which has increased" causing negative account balances; subscribers report being refused cancellation.
- Nov–Dec 2023: Last invoice bearing "ONT Insurance."
- Dec 2023–Jan 2024: Renamed "ONT Equipment Guarantee fee," identical amount, no customer notification documented.
- 2025: Regulatory engagement; written apology issued; no public IPEC enforcement action recorded.
Duration of product: 7+ years, first complaint May 2018 to apology in 2025. The language changed. The fee did not.
CONSUMER CONDUCT
Subscribers who asked to cancel were told they could not
"I've tried canceling the ont insurance. They refused to cancel it. They are forcing me to keep having it and pay every month for an add on service I was initially told I can cancel any time."
— Public comment, Techzim Facebook, 6 July 2022
— Public comment, Techzim Facebook, 6 July 2022
The company's own 2025 written response: "the equipment guarantee fee is optional and we should have suspended billing at the point that you made the request. My apologies for our failures."
The fee was optional throughout — which means every refusal to cancel was incorrect by Liquid Home's own account.
THREE ADMISSIONS, ONE SENTENCE
"My apologies for our failures" — plural
- "The fee is optional" — subscribers refused cancellation were refused incorrectly, by the company's own account.
- "We should have suspended billing" — billing continued after cancellation requests, a sustained pattern, not a one-off error.
- "My apologies for our failures" — "failures," plural. An acknowledgement of a systemic pattern, not a single incident.
OBSERVATION 01
96% isn't a pricing error. It's the whole business model.
A subscriber paid the full replacement cost of the ONT every 12.5 months, and the charge continued for as long as they remained a subscriber. That ratio only makes sense if the fee was never meant to track risk.
OBSERVATION 02
The cancellation refusal is worse than the pricing.
The gap between "the fee is optional" and "they refused to cancel it" was sustained for at least three years, across an unknown number of subscribers. The pricing issue is significant. Being told you can't leave a product the company admits was optional is the core consumer harm here.
BOTTOM LINE
Not insurance
Not priced for risk. Not licensed. Not stoppable on request.
A monthly charge described as "ONT Insurance" for years — flagged as a hidden fee as early as 2018, refused for cancellation by 2022, renamed "Guarantee fee" within one billing cycle in late 2023, and apologised for in writing in 2025. The name changed. The billing did not — until the regulator arrived.
TRY IT · YOUR PERSONAL TOTAL
How much did you pay?
Modems bought/replaced1
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OVERPAID VS DEVICE COST
FOR AFFECTED SUBSCRIBERS
What to do if you were charged
- Check your invoices for "ONT Insurance" (before Dec 2023) or "ONT Equipment Guarantee fee" (from Dec 2023 onward), downloadable from myLiquid at zw.myliquidhome.tech.
- Calculate the total — multiply the monthly amount by the number of months it appears.
- Write to Liquid Home at [email protected] requesting removal and a refund. State account number, line item, period, and total.
- Copy IPEC at [email protected] or file at ipec.co.zw, referencing the product name and the absence of a short-term insurance licence.
END OF STORY
Deep Dive Data covers Zimbabwe capital markets and financial products.
Produced independently using POTRAZ Quarterly Sector Performance Reports (2018–2025), IPEC's public licensing register, Liquid Home Zimbabwe fiscal tax invoices held by Deep Dive Data, a written response from Liquid Home Zimbabwe (2025), a public subscriber comment (17 May 2018), and a Techzim Facebook post (6 July 2022). The estimated $11.2 million figure is a conservative model. Deep Dive Data has reached out to Liquid Home Zimbabwe for comment; this article will be updated if a response is received.