Unfortunately, insurance coverage is often a luxury often out of reach to those who need it most. And those that do have may find that it wouldn't cover them in all situations, creating holes that make them vulnerable to capricious circumstances. Crafting comprehensive coverage is often too complicated and expensive for the average customer to obtain.

Low-income customers feel lost and helpless amidst a complicated financial system that seems ever-tangled in costs, paperwork and complex systems. Accounts, payments, statements and other common facets of personal finances seem beyond the average person's control. Enterprises like Metropolitan aim to put insurance and other services back in the customers' hands-literally-with accessible technology such as the mobile phone.

The Solution

To address the goal to develop innovative products for individuals who previously had little or no access to insurance services; Metropolitan established a new business unit called Cover2go aimed at leveraging SMS and the mobile channel to better serve the customer.

Through the use of Clickatell SMS, Metropolitan's Cover2go opened the door to life cover for those who had little entry to it before - opening up an entirely new market full of potential. By sending a simple SMS, South Africans could get access to instant cover when they most needed it.

The Results

The take-up of the new SMS-based insurance product has already yielded a few thousand new policies over as many months. These results were achieved without the involvement of an agent intermediary and very little marketing or promotion. Metropolitan considers the Cover2go launch a solid success given that fundamental societal challenges are also underway in terms of how many South Africans have historically perceived the insurance industry and individual insurance purchase process.

Cover2go has benefited by:

• Instant access to previously under serviced markets.
• Reduced costs - No broker or call centre costs.
• Ease-of-use - no download or set-up required by customer.
• High Reach and High Response to Calls-to-Action.
• QoS - eg. Increases client satisfaction and loyalty.
• Convenient and secure low-cost communication tool (eg. Insurance renewal/payment reminders, stock market alerts, claim process updates).

Innovative solutions like Cover2go are exactly the kind of game-changers that are needed to both increase the popularity and broad availability of insurance products affordable to everyday consumers.