Purchasable through mobile phones and SMS, MicroEnsure offers affordable health, life and disability insurance for low-income residents in 9 countries.
Operating in Asia and Africa, MicroEnsure’s innovative SMS-based platform and partnerships with mobile carriers enable customers to get insured in seconds and pay using pre-paid airtime. Claims can be submitted via a text message and are paid to the customer’s “mobile wallet” within hours. To keep the premiums low, MicroEnsure negotiates with insurance companies on behalf of their clients.
MicroEnsure has a number of different plans designed for specific locations. In India, for instance, the company offers cashless access to hospitals for poor, rural households for about $5 per person per year. Under an initiative in Ghana, MicroEnsure partners with microfinance banks to pay a borrower’s loan installment while the person is hospitalized. The company’s insurance platforms have provided more than 48 million customers in Africa and Asia with their first insurance policies.
No one wakes up in the morning wanting to buy insurance – but billions of people in emerging markets wake up every day worried about the risks they face.
Richard Leftly – CEO of MicroEnsure.
Why you should care
Before the country entered the Zambian market, only 1% of the population had access to insurance. In just one month after MicroEnsure offered their product, this jumped to 17%. MicroEnsure relies on the ubiquity of the cellphones to offer low-cost, quality health insurance to people in developing countries with no other insurance options.
How the Global Goals are addressed
No Poverty
In a study of 15 African countries, 30% of all households financed out-of-pocket health expenditure by borrowing and selling assets. With MicroEnsure poor households avoid falling further into poverty.
Good Health and Well-Being
MicroEnsure’s health insurance increases access to decent medical care for people who could otherwise not afford it.
Reduced Inequalities
Affordable health, life and disability insurance can serve as the buffer needed by poorer people to help them overcome inequalities in accessing basic services.
Partnerships for the Goals
MicroEnsure develops multiple partnerships with insurance companies and mobile carriers, with them aim of increasing access to essential financial services for the poor.
MicroEnsure
MicroEnsure creates innovative solutions to meet this untapped demand and expand insurance protection on an unprecedented scale.
Global Goals addressed