: clients
Airtel Insurance with MicroEnsure
Airtel Insurance with MicroEnsure
Country of Operation
Approach
Target geography
Target Population
Target income level
- Lower-middle income (20-40%)
- Middle-income (40-60%)
- Higher middle-income (60-80%)
- High-income (80-100%)
Health focus
- Primary care
CHMI PLUS Status
Profile Completeness Rating
Monitoring & Evaluation Reporting
Summary
Airtel rewards loyal customers (who registered for the product by dialing a shortcode) with free insurance as long as they spent a minimum amount of airtime (usually $2). The more a customer spent with the telecom, the more health insurance could be earnedProgram goals
MicroEnsure and Airtel launched their first simple health insurance product in Ghana in January 2014 and have since launched in seven other African markets. The product is relatively straightforward: Airtel rewards loyal customers (who registered for the product by dialing a shortcode) with free insurance as long as they spent a minimum amount of airtime (usually $2). The more a customer spent with the telecom, the more health insurance could be earned. Customers were educated as to how the product works via a Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) menu showing policy information and through monthly SMS communications informing them the amount of insurance they earned for the following month
Key program components
The health insurance offered a simple benefit, consistent across every market: qualifying customers received one month of hospital cash as a lump sum of up to $150 paid to them via mobile money if they spent three nights or more in any hospital across the nation, for any medical reason, with no exclusions. This wide-open claims model was designed to eliminate the fine print traditionally associated with insurance and to demonstrate a reliable product. Furthermore, even a small amount of health insurance coverage representIMPLEMENTATION DATE: January 2014 to Present JSI A unique partnership between insurance and telecommunications companies proves a different path to increase access to health financing. mHEALTH COMPENDIUM VOLUME 5 n 59 ed a massive improvement over the status quo in these developing markets, and provided a preliminary foray into health financing. SIM-card swapping is common in Africa and there is generally a low level of brand loyalty towards many African telecoms. Because the MicroEnsure-Airtel product was expected to increase brand loyalty as well as revenue for the telecom, Airtel paid the premiums to MicroEnsure and its partner insurance companies in various markets. The customer’s airtime was not deducted but rather the cover was provided for free and paid by the telecom on the basis of the overall increase in value to their core business (via airtime spend) from the portfolio of insured customers. This business model therefore offered a “win-win-win” for the patient, distributor, and insurer alike. The patient received free and reliable means of mitigating risk, the distributor received a product to increase revenue and brand loyalty, and the insurer saw millions more customers become policyholders on a financially viable basis as premiums exceeded the cost of claims.
Scale
Technology
Financials
Reported Results
Health Outcome:
Parent Organizations
- AirtelFor-profit
- MicroEnsureNot-for-profit