How do you make insurance affordable enough that someone living on less than $4 a day can afford it? And once they can afford it, how do you convince them to buy it?

Enter the game-changing work of MicroEnsure. By 2020, they aim to give more than 30M low to middle income families in Africa and Asia access to affordable insurance products. As a result, reducing the number of families that fall back into poverty following unexpected events.

MicroEnsure practices what they call ‘beyond first-world service’. They pride themselves on paying insurance claims to their middle to low-income clients within 72 hours. This is faster than the average in the western world! Further, to help people make claims, they have “call-out centers” where they call people who, for instance, show a large drop in their monthly cell phone usage. Indicators like a drop in cell phone usage is often the sign of sickness or even death. Their Call-out Centers help people make claims that would otherwise go unknown as often their family doesn’t realize they had insurance to help with their situation.

Paying claims within 72 hours and using Call-out Centers to find customers most needing help with a claim are two of the strategies that help them create the impact they intend. As a result, they’ve significantly reduced the number of families that fall back into poverty due to an unexpected event.