AIRTEL
entry into the life insurance business on Wednesday prompted the chief
executive officer Adil El Youssefi to warn the rival Safaricom
against copying the product saying its “innovative enough to double
our customer base”.
“Airtel
insurance is a mass market product. The copying of our products by
the dominant competitor will not be tolerated,” he said during the
launch in Nairobi.
He
said they are aware the Airtel visa card which was launched in
September 2014 has been copied adding Safaricom might launch a similar
product next month.
Airtel
currently has six million subscribers who it expects to be the first
consumers of the new insurance product before it hits the rest of the
market.
The
telecommunications provider has partnered with the underwriters Pan
Africa Life and Micro Ensure in setting up the cover that will
provide accident and hospitalisation benefits based on the monthly
airtime usage of the signed up subscribers. “We
have been working on this product for over a year now. Its available
to subscribers aged between 18-65 who will only need to sign up via a
short code and consume airtime up to the Sh250 mark each month in
order to be eligible for the benefits,” he said.
Subscribers are advised to dial *336# in order to sign up.
Subscribers are advised to dial *336# in order to sign up.
According
to Airtel, a monthly usage of Sh250 airtime will give the customer
Sh1000 hospitalisation and Sh10,000 life and accident insurance while
Sh500 airtime usage will earn Sh2000 hospitalisation and Sh25,000
life and accident. The
other two packages require subscribers to use Sh1000 or Sh2000
airtime in order to earn hospitalisation benefits amounting to Sh5000
or Sh10,000 and life and accident benefits of Sh100,000 and Sh250,000
in each.
Head
of Pan Africa Life Assurance Stephen Kamanda said the product design
could revolutionize life insurance uptake in Kenya to much higher
levels from the current 1.2 per cent, mainly because of the high
penetration of mobile phones in Kenya. “The
eminent gap together with the need to provide life insurance is what
motivated us to bring this solution in this market,” he said.
The
Communication Authority of Kenya data for the second quarter of the
2014/2015 financial year show 33.6 million people own a mobile phone,
representing a penetration rate of 82.6 per cent.
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