MicroEnsure serves 10 M clients in Asia, Africa

MANILA, Philippines - Global microinsurance specialist MicroEnsure is serving over 10 million enrolled clients, mostly in Africa and Asia.

It also raised fresh capital worth $10.4 million from existing investors, as well as AXA of France and Sanlam Emerging Markets. Its strategic investors are the International Finance Corp. (IFC) of the World Bank, Telenor, Omidyar Network and Opportunity.

MicroEnsure chief executive officer Richard Leftley said that the entry of Sanlam and AXA as investors increases the microinsurance specialist capacity to cope with its expanding client base.

“Sanlam and AXA’s underwriting capacity and skills will be critical additions to ouor existing investors as we continue to expand rapidly and reach millions of low and middle-income families in new territories,” Leftley added.

He said that MicroEnsure is looking at a minimum of 12.7 million clients by the end of 2014.

AXA chief investment officer Laurent Clamagirand said that the insurers either maximize risk-adjusted returns or donate to maximize social impact. “Our impact investment policy is designed to balance both outcomes, as our investment in MicroEnsure perfectly illustrates this commitment,” Clamagirand added.

Another factor that helped expand its client is its partnerships with mobile network operators, microfinance providers and banks in Africa and Asia.

Critical to the growth has been its partnerships with mobile networks including Telenor in Asia and Airtel in Africa.

In Bangladesh, MicroEnsure has enrolled over one million clients through ‘Nirvoy’ in partnership with Grameenphone, a free life insurance product that now has more than two million actively enrolled subscribers.

In Ghana, MicroEnsure has doubled the number of clients served to reach more than half a million people in the past month in partnership with Airtel Ghana. The “Three-for-Free” product provides a free life, accident, and hospital cash product to Airtel subscribers that spend more than approximately $2 per month on airtime.

Leftley said that MicroEnsure team has consistently been an innovative thought leader. And combined with the recent investments has resulting in a significant and sustained growth in the number of people that have access to insurance for the first time.

MicroEnsure also allied with a range of distribution partners in order to expand access to as many different groups of people as possible.

One recent example of this expansion was the launch of Sehat Khushhali Plus by Pakistan’s largest microfinance bank, Khushhalibank in partnership with MicroEnsure Pakistan and Jubilee Life Insurance Co. Sehat Khushhali Plus is an innovative health insurance product that provides a financial benefit which can be used by the clients for meeting expenses incurred on hospitalization treatment.