Award Applications

MicroEnsure develops insurance products in collaboration with microinsurance and microfinance partners to deliver a service to the mass market that prevents families sliding back into poverty following an accident, death or health emergency. By building simple, easy to use insurance products that address the risks faced by tens of millions of people in Africa and Asia, and working with partners to deliver against their business objectives through the supply of innovative insurance products, we assist in reducing poverty and increasing the opportunities for financial inclusion for those at the base of the pyramid. By the end of 2017 MicroEnsure was covering in excess of 25 million clients with an aggregate in excess of 64 million people enrolling for insurance over the prior five years. 85% of these people have never had insurance before and are part of the underserved mass market that operate at the base of the pyramid many of which live in rural areas of Africa and Asia.
MicroEnsure are successfully demonstrating that access to insurance is possible for the low income emerging consumers via trusted distribution partners across Mobile Network Operators, Mobile Money/Wallet operators, Micro Finance Institutions and Commercial Banks. We have transformed the way that the emerging customer can access affordable, simple and effective insurance via digital enrolment covering risks across accident, life, health and job loss. We are pioneering financial inclusion in emerging markets, transforming lives and local economies at the base of the pyramid.
MicroEnsure have over 80 active partnerships across 10 countries in Africa and Asia providing insurance and are using insurance as an incentive for our partners to acquire customers, promote activity, change behaviour and increase customer retention. Many of these distribution partners pay for the premiums on behalf of their customers to reward these behaviours making the insurance free of cost to their customers. Examples of this are:
• Airtel Payment Bank, India where 13 million customers have enrolled since November 2016, receiving personal accident insurance cover by opening a payment bank account and can retain their insurance cover by making just one payment transaction in a month – increased digital payments on account increases level of continuous insurance and contributes to the increase in financial inclusion.
• Grameenphone, Bangladesh where over 5.6 million customers have received “free” life insurance by achieving a target level of monthly airtime top-up increasing revenues and loyalty for Grameenphone customers
• Barclays Bank, Ghana where over 30,000 customers have received retrenchment and life insurance for opening a bank account and retaining a balance in that account. If a customer loses their job through redundancy, they have 3x month salary paid via the insurance claim.
• Grameenphone - Bangladesh – Telco – Life – over 5.6 million enrolments since launch in June 2013 – a free product to Grameenphone account holders, increasing Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) with increasing tiers of cover based on increasing tiers of usage and significantly reduced churn of customers from their network. Providing Life Insurance to over 5 million Bangladeshi citizens drives the financial inclusion growth at the base of the pyramid.
The Airtel Payments Bank product in India has demonstrated how a free for first month product can introduce insurance and encourages continual transaction usage of digital banking methods with continued insurance benefits, this has been most pertinent in India as it moves to a cashless method of banking and a more secure financial set up.
Barclays Ghana salaried account based product has seen a replication most recently with I&M Bank in Kenya, encouraging regular banking practices for salaried workers and therefore access to a wider range of financial services.
MicroEnsure are also pioneering the way that consumers in emerging markets can purchase insurance themselves through mobile financial services. An example of this is with JazzCash in Pakistan where consumers can purchase and pay for health insurance via their mobile wallets.
Health cover is a key focus area and we are providing products that offer living benefits such as ‘Dial a Doctor’ which give a value added service and a positive experience of insurance. For each product, we don’t start by designing a product in a board room – we visit our customers in markets and villages to understand how they cope with the variety of risks in their lives.
Alongside the development of client-centric solutions, is the development of the distribution mechanic through our partners to meet their specific needs with an insurance product solution as part of or in addition to their current portfolio of products and services.
Following the introduction of our proprietary product platform, MicroEnsure’s Global Product Platform (MGPP), we provide a highly scalable digital enrolment platform with real time processing of enrolment data and policy creation, resulting in an end to end solution from enrolment through to claims and payment of benefit to the end client in very short timescales. This dedication to increasing our value-add facility has allowed claims to be approved within a seven hour window and payments to be received within 24 hours of notification as was the case with the Fearless product in Kenya https://microensure.com/microensure-client-claim-approved-less-7-hours/
Our Technology platforms, enrolment, policy administration and claims infrastructure has been designed for scale with capabilities of handing real time data processing for millions of policies per day & therefore we are perfectly positioned for expansion in our current global footprint and beyond.
As we enter 2018 we are in the process of implementing a revised strategy focused on increasing our role and adding more services linked to the insurance products to secure our position in the value chain therefore maintaining our sustainability as a business.