aYo Intermediaries Ghana, the leading inclusive insurance company in the country, has paid GHc4.5 million in claims to low income Ghanaians in 2022.
Since inception in 2017, aYo has reached over eight million Ghanaians representing about 25% of the population and paid out more than GHS14 million in over 40,000 claims.
CEO of aYo, Francis Gota made this known on Thursday June 15 in Accra ahead of the launch of aYo Family Cover policy.
Francis Gota observed that despite the success story of insurance coverage in Ghana, which is largely due to aYo’s innovative activities in the inclusive insurance space, in terms of the contribution of insurance to Ghana’s GDP, penetration is still at a 2% low.
He noted that even though inclusive insurance does not guarantee high margins, it is a critical avenue for achieving at least nine of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and that is why aYo is happy to make that contribution in Africa.
On why aYo has been successfully in the micro insurance space, Gota explaied aYo invests heavily into research to understand the needs of its clients and design specific products to meet their aspirations, with five core principles; simplicity, easy understanding, affordability and accessibility, value for clients and efficiency in managing the policy.
We also invest regularly and significantly into technology to ensure efficiency in service delivery, particularly premium payment and the resolution of customer complaints,” he said.
Gota also noted that aYo’s success is driven by its uniqueness in the providing real-time solutions, flexibility in premium payment with airtime and mobile money, multiple touch and service points, constant customer engagement through both interactive media and in-life message among other things.
He however stressed that fraudulent claims has been an issue for them, and sometimes they only realise the fraud after the claims is paid.
We urged Ghanaians to report any fraudulent act in order to sanctify the system or else it may lead to delay in claims payment due to extra scrutiny of claim request,” he cautioned.
“Buy currently we are relying on our established relationships with various hospitals so that we can properly verify any claims made by clients before we pay claims – and we still try to do all that within the shortest possible time so that the client would not have to wait for too long,” he said.
The aYo Family policy, which is expected to be launched soon, promises to provide relief for families who cannot afford insurance policies that require huge premiums.
Under the aYo Family Cover, patrons will enjoy up to GHc15,000 life cover and GHc300 hospital cover for up to six family members with a premium of only GHc15 per person a month, deductible from the customers’ MTN mobile money wallets.
It comes to add up to aYo’s three existing products – Recharge with Care (RwC), RwC Annual Cover and then Send with Care.
RwC allows customers to pay only GHS6 a month from their MTN airtime and benefit from GHS6,000 life cover for themselves and one other dependant, plus a GHS120 per night of hospital admission.
Under RwC Annual Cover, the customer pays just GHS130 upfront annual premium and still benefits from the GHS6,000 life cover, GHS120 per night hospital admission, plus 10% cashback in case of no claims at the end of the year.
Send with Care (SwC) is a policy that require customers to contribute just 5% of every amount they send on MTN mobile money as premium and then they stand to benefit up to GHS30,000 life cover.
Driven by its vision – a future where every Ghanaian uses insurance – aYo is still designing policies and products to ensure that even those at the lowest part of the economic ladder get insurance cover, so they can also have some relief when crisis hits.
Ghana’s success story is being replicated in other African countries including Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire and others.