Selcom’s push for financial inclusion finally makes small-business insurance accessible and affordable; first of many insurance products in Selcom’s pipeline
Selcom’s Product Lifecycle Coordinator, Gallus Runyeta speaking at the Hifadhi Biashara Launch last week at the Four Points by Sheraton Dar es Salaam New Africa Hotel.
In a class of its own, microinsurance policy available through Selcom Huduma agents and duka.direct that covers fire, theft, property damage, rent and death.
Selcom, Sanlam and Howden-Puri have come together to launch Hifadhi Biashara, a flagship product that makes affordable microinsurance accessible and available to small and informal businesses in Tanzania.
Hifadhi Biashara, which only needs a phone number and NIDA (card or number) to sign up, is exclusively available from Selcom’s Huduma agent network and the Selcom’s duka.direct e-commerce platform. The policy is tailored for small and informal business owners to provide cover for property damage, burglary, rent, robbery and death - all in one policy.
The structure of the policy is aimed at providing protection against the common perils that small and informal businesses, such as wakalas/agents, retail shops, kiosks, home-based entrepreneurs and traders face.
Selcom, through its e-commerce platform duka.direct, has begun offering business insurance on its digital platform to cover small businesses from 5 damages in a single policy, marking Tanzania's largest PSP’s foray into this services category in the country.
The Hifadhi Biashara insurance policy is available to customers through the duka.direct app and at any 25,000+ Selcom Huduma touchpoints or the recently launched Selcom Huduma app. Buying insurance via your smartphone or at Selcom Huduma agents takes less than two minutes and requires no paperwork for TZS 7,000 per month, payable monthly, quarterly or annually.
This coupled with services like hassle-free claims with zero paperwork, simple sign-up, 3-day assured claim servicing, 24x7 customer service support, self-survey for claim settlement and much more, makes it an attractive proposition for customers.
“The significance of insurance is lost on most business owners in Tanzania. Stopping short of stating the obvious, this needs mass-market training and education to expose businesses to the safetynet insurance cover provides. Selcom sees insurance as a necessary cog in the financial inclusion wheel, and we would like to play a role in not just bringing insurance products as a source of revenue for our agents but more importantly as something that they see value in subscribing to. If the pandemic has taught us anything it’s that tomorrow is unpredictable and we need to make allowances for the unseen. The end goal is to financially include and cover as many small and informal businesses as possible such that they can operate knowing that they are protected”
In Tanzania, only 21% of the nation’s population currently have access to insurance, according to the Tanzania Insurance Regulatory Authority Report 2021. And some analysts say that digital and financial firms could prove crucial in bringing these services to the masses. Hifadhi Biashara is one step in this direction.
Selcom, Sanlam and Howden-Puri look forward to further collaborations to help accelerate the government's vision of growing insurance uptake to 50% of Tanzania’s population by 2030 with the aim to create a tech-driven, multi-channel general insurance purchase with innovative and affordable insurance products.
Selcom is also working with some of the leading insurance service providers in the industry for providing access to customised and simplified plans based on the dynamic needs of Tanzanian consumers.
For more information download the duka.direct app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
About Selcom:
Selcom is a Pan-African cross-segment financial and payment services provider, providing its customers across Sub-Saharan Africa, with a full range of electronic payment products and services focusing on digital, card and card-less processing services. Selcom Huduma, initially under the Selcom Paypoint brand, was founded in 2009 to facilitate cash-assisted bill payments in Tanzania. The service is now being provided by over 25,000 agents nationwide.
Selcom’s duka.direct is the fastest growing app based e-commerce platform in Tanzania. The marketplace platform is equipped to bring buyers and sellers together across diverse product lines including groceries and essentials, food delivery, pharmaceuticals, digital insurance and much more. Guaranteeing the lowest prices, duka.direct offers a comprehensive order fulfillment process from order processing to delivery, coupled with a suite of ancillary services such as digital payments and complete transaction visibility.
About Sanlam:
Sanlam is a leading diversified Pan-African financial services group listed on the Johannesburg and Namibian Stock Exchanges. Sanlam was established in 1918 as a life insurance company. Today, the Group has a business presence in 33 countries in Africa, as well as in the USA, Malaysia, the UK, India, and Australia. Sanlam General Insurance Tanzania has been operational since 1998 and offers a full menu of general insurance products for both personal and corporate clients. Their product offering includes business and personal products such as, motor, fire, marine, engineering etc. Sanlam General Insurance is also able to provide many other tailor made and specialised products.
About Howden Puri:
Howden Puri is a specialist broker, comprising local experience with global expertise. Their bespoke service is tailored to your business’ unique risks and opportunities, and we are always striving to deliver innovative, tech-based solutions for our clients. Their corporate branch is in Kinondoni and also has a retail branch in the CBD.