VisionFund Uganda and Turaco Insurance Brokers Limited (T/A Turaco) are proud to officially announce the launch of their partnership with a microinsurance product called “VisionFund Cares”. The product offering, available to over 40,000 VisionFund customers and their families, is designed to help ease the financial burden associated with hospital admissions, permanent disability and death. The cover is underwritten by ICEA LION Life Assurance Company Uganda Ltd.
VisionFund Uganda is a microfinance institution (MFI) and affiliate of World Vision Uganda that started in 1996 as MEDNET and later rebranded in 2012 as VisionFund Uganda. The MFI has grown to a footprint of 21 branches, serving 44,000 clients out of whom, 58% women are women. Through its its business, VisionFund also impacts over 270,000 children in Uganda. In a bid to foster financial inclusion, VisionFund recently expanded its outreach to Uganda’s West Nile region to serve the refugees and their host communities.
Turaco, on the other hand, is a low-cost insurance provider that designs and delivers affordable insurance to underserved customers. The company professes, as its corporate purpose, freeing people from the fear of financial shocks by acting as a safety net for customers in their greatest time of need. Turaco works through business partnerships to offer valued-adding tailor-made products. The company currently, operates in Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria.
With over 50% of Ugandan adults experiencing a health risk in the last year but only 1.4% of them having proper insurance, this partnership seeks to widen the financial inclusion amongst low-income communities with an insurance product designed to their appropriate needs and requirements.
VisionFund Cares monthly cover retails at an individual price of UGX 2,500 for an individual client or UGX 5,000 for a family of 4, and it protects children below 18 years and adults up to 75 years of age.
To add, the maximum annual benefits for the insurance plan are UGX 500,000 in the event of hospital admission for three or more consecutive nights; UGX 2 million paid to the next of kin in the unfortunate event that the insured passes on or UGX 1 million in the event of a permanent and total loss of the use of a limb, sight, speech or hearing, or mental or cognitive impairment caused by accident or illness
Bob Okodi, Amref Health Africa Uganda CFO, On Purpose-Driven Finance and Measuring Impact in Lives, Not MarginsBeyond Credit: VisionFund, touching the lives of over 300,000 children in rural Uganda
Speaking about the partnership, Mercy Sande Ainomugisha, Chief Executive Officer, VisionFund Uganda, said, “I am profoundly excited at the establishment of a solution, which aligns with our 2022/2024 strategy of sustainably impacting over 300,000 children in rural and vulnerable communities in Uganda through offering client solutions beyond credit. Through this partnership with Turaco, we can now widen our financial services further to provide a safety net tailored to our clients’ needs and capacity to pay in times of crisis.”
Solène Favre, VisionFund International Global Insurance Director said, “Our focus is on providing financial solutions to people living in vulnerable, rural communities, most of which are low-income population. We, at VFI and in support of our MicroFinance Institutions, strengthen our efforts to ensure that our clients are protected and able to recover from shocks they might encounter by designing, negotiating, and implementing health insurance solutions that meet the needs of our borrowers and their families. We are very happy to partner with Turaco in Uganda as our insurance provider, and we strongly believe that this project will be transformative to underserved population in Uganda and ensure greater resilience for communities as they learn to use formal financial services through insurance products”
Hamza Mutebi, General Manager – Uganda, Turaco, said, ”Families, businesses and governments alike continue to face several financial after-shocks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the centre of these shocks are vulnerable and low-income people in Uganda that are underserved but have the highest need for risk protection. We believe that although many things are uncertain in their lives, the ability to access and afford quality healthcare should not be one of them. That’s why we are doing what we can to stand by them in their greatest times of need.”
This collaboration is another welcome addition to Turaco’s growing list of partnerships as they inch closer towards their bold, audacious goal of insuring a billion people in the next 25 years. Since its launch in February 2019, Turaco and its subsidiaries have insured over 375,000 lives in Uganda and Kenya and paid thousands of claims with an average turnaround time of less than three business days.
