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hindelquarrouti

WorldCover CropAssure | WorldCover Insurance - 4 views

  • CropAssure has been developed by our team of agronomists to protect against weather events most detrimental to almond growth, specific to your region. We will pair you with a member of our agronomic team to develop an insurance product that fits your needs and your budget.
    • aminej
       
      It is good to see that they are putting an important focus on the local production of almonds. Since it is a product specific to this region, it is necessary to keep it protected against natural disasters or weather conditions.
  • easily understandable policies that will protect you against the risks completely out of your control - unpredictable weather.
  • protect against weather events most detrimental to almond growth, specific to your region
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    Worldcover is a fintech company that helps even small farmers hedge the risks that are related to unpredictable events, like climate change, that are beyond their power. It provides them with the right kind of insurance depending on their region and it uses AI in order to be more precise in doing so.
aminej

WorldCover raises $6M round for emerging markets' climate insurance | TechCrunch - 1 views

  • WorldCover investor and EchoVC founder Eghosa Omoigui believes the startup’s insurance offerings can actually help farmers improve yield. “Weather-risk drives a lot of decisions with these farmers on what to plant, when to plant, and how much to plant,” he said. “With the crop insurance option, the farmer says, ‘Instead of one hector, I can now plant two or three, because I’m covered.’ ”
  • WorldCover’s platform uses satellite imagery, on-ground sensors, mobile phones and data analytics to create insurance options for farmers whose crop yields are affected adversely by weather events — primarily lack of rain.
  • For the moment, WorldCover only insures for events such as rainfall risk, but in the future it will look to include other weather events, such as tropical storms, in its insurance programs and platform data analytics.
    • tahaemsd
       
      worldcover model oes not assess or provide insurance payouts specificially for climate change
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  • the startup will look to possibilities to update its platform to offer farming advice to smallholder farmers, in addition to insurance coverage.
    • aminej
       
      WorldCover has managed to raise funds of 6 milllion which is huge. It shows that companies are more and more helping farmers and agriculture because it is very important for the development of a country
  • WorldCover, a New York and Africa-based climate insurance provider to smallholder farmers, has raised a $6 million Series A round led by MS&AD Ventures.Y Combinator, Western Technology Investment and EchoVC also participated in the round.WorldCover’s platform uses satellite imagery, on-ground sensors, mobile phones and data analytics to create insurance options for farmers whose crop yields are affected adversely by weather events — primarily lack of rain.
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    WorldCover provides a solution for crop and smallholder farmers to protect themselves from weather uncertainty. The company gives an opportunity to those farmers to hedge against weather risks, which helps them increase their yield.
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    Worldcover is an African-based Insurance that covers climate. It mainly targets farmers. It benefits from the use of satellite imagery and data analytics in order to create good insurance options to farmers.
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    Worldcover gives small farmers the correct sort of insurance relying on their region.
ghtazi

Home | WorldCover Insurance - 0 views

  • Tailored Insurance For Almond FarmersWe have applied our argonomic modeling expertise to develop a specialty product focused on protecting almond growers against increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. Either as an alternative or supplement to your existing insurance, CropAssure Almond provides easy to understand policies, and pays out automatically when your covered risks occur.
    • ghtazi
       
      in this article, it shows that the company wants to help high-value crop growers manage their financial risk to climate change, unpredictable weather, and natural disasters. WorldCover's product vision is for commercial farmers to experience parametric insurance in a way that is easy to understand (simple), engenders trust (transparent), and fits them well at any size (tailored).
aminej

About Us | WorldCover Insurance - 0 views

  • We believe we can bring parametric insurance to the worldBuilding our product from the ground up, five years ago we started by selling simple weather insurance to smallholder farmers in Africa via agents and in-person marketing - selling over 30,000 policies direct to farmers. Since those days, we have incorporated digital marketing, scaled our technology and sold our policies to customers around the world.We want to help high value crop growers manage their financial risk to climate change, unpredictable weather and natural disasters.WorldCover’s product vision is for commercial farmers to experience parametric insurance in a way that is easy to understand (simple), engenders trust (transparent), and fits them well at any size (tailored).
    • aminej
       
      This is a very good product for farmers who suffer from losses due to natural disasters or weather issues and also from regulations on agricultural products. It is important to help this category of people because their job is extremely important and hard sometimes. It is also a good way to show them that they can be protected.
mohammed_ab

The Complex Insurance Coverage Reporter - September 2020 - The Complex Insurance Covera... - 0 views

  • Over the last decade, there has been a global increase in the focus on climate change and the risks and dangers associated with it. And for good reason. Damage from climate-related disasters was in the billions of dollars in 2019 alone. California wildfires caused $25 billion in property damage, while Typhoon Hagibis in Japan cost an estimated $15 billion. Other extreme weather events, including rampant brush fires in Australia, widespread droughts in East Africa and severe flooding in South Asia, have had devastating consequences.
  • Like Kin, NYC-based WorldCover was created in response to climate-related disasters. It works to provide drought insurance to farmers in Africa. When first launched, WorldCover was available only in Ghana and covered only one crop: maize. Since then, the company has expanded to multiple markets in East and West Africa, covering four categories of crops: cereals, legumes, root vegetables and perennials. WorldCover uses a combination of satellite imagery and on-the-ground sensors to understand local weather patterns in order to create insurance options for farmers facing some of the world’s worst droughts. The company uses its satellites to monitor rainfall patterns and trigger payouts immediately.
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    I think that the testing phase of WorldCover was very smart. World Cover started offering micro-insurance for only one type of crop which is maize. After a great success with this type of crop, the company started to broaden its coverage to other types of crops and to other markets like East and West Africa. The company uses machine learning and satellite imagery to analyze the weather and the land of the farmers which in my opinion helps the company in being very accurate and efficient.
mohammed_ab

Pula Secures Funding from Global Investors to Support Smallholder Farmers in Africa and... - 0 views

  • At Pula, we are radically restructuring agricultural insurance, using technology to insure the previously unbanked, uninsured, untapped market of 1.5 billion smallholders worldwide. We work in nine countries across Africa and Asia, and in 2017 alone, we facilitated crop and livestock insurance cover to 611,000 farmers in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Malawi.
    • nourserghini
       
      Pula serves many African countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria and Malawi.
  • Pula uses satellite data and farm yield measurements to understand how weather patterns affect a smallholder farmer’s yield, and uses this information to automate compensation in case of loss. The company also provides farmers with targeted agronomic advice via SMS messaging, helping them grow more from their existing landholdings.
  • Insurtech startup Pula announced today that it has closed a seed funding round to advance its efforts to provide insurance to smallholder farmers in Africa and South Asia.
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  • This injection of funds will enable Pula to invest further in its technology platform and service offerings.
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    I like the way Pula uses the latest technology in order to understand the weather and the possible problems that farmers might find. This is a very good strategy because farmers feel that Pula is doing its best to deliver the best insurance possible for them.
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    This excerpt shows that Pula has secured new funding to invest more in its technology. This is good news for its customers as they will benefit from better technology and more product offerings.
aminej

(2) WorldCover: Overview | LinkedIn - 1 views

  • WorldCover uses technology to help commercial growers and agribusinesses reduce climate risk. Our featured product CropAssure is tailored to help almond growers protect against weather risk from frost and excess rain events.
    • aminej
       
      I find this crop insurance service very interesting because it allows you to protect your production against anything. It is also very transparent by defining clear, objective thresholds to show exactly what weather will trigger a payout on your fields. Also you can have real time monitoring on which you can extract data about your reporting and planning. In case something happens, you receive automated payments on each period
mohammed_ab

Kenyan insurtech startup Pula raises $6M Series A to derisk smallholder farmers across ... - 1 views

  • Another startup is Apollo Agriculture which raised $6 million Series A, akin to Pula. Not only did the pair raise the same round, Apollo Agriculture and Pula both deal with providing financial resources to smallholder farmers.
    • nourserghini
       
      Apollo Agriculture is another rival in the industry that is also considered as a partner and complement in the industry.
  • Pula is solving this problem by using technology and data. Through its Area Yield Index Insurance product, the insurtech startup leverages machine learning, crop-cut experiments and data points relating to weather patterns and farmer losses, to build products that cater to various risks.But getting farmers on board has never been easy, Goslinga told TechCrunch. According to her, Pula has understood not to sell insurance directly to small-scale farmers, because they can suffer from optimism bias. “Some think a climate disaster wouldn’t hit their farms for a particular season; hence, they don’t ask for insurance initially. But if they witness any of these climate risks during the season, they would want to get insurance, which is counterproductive to Pula,” said the founder in a phone call.
  • Pula, a Kenyan insurtech startup that specialises in digital and agricultural insurance to derisk millions of smallholder farmers across Africa, has closed a Series A investment of $6 million.The round was led by Pan-African early-stage venture capital firm, TLcom Capital, with participation from nonprofit Women’s World Banking. The raise comes after Pula closed $1 million in seed investment from Rocher Participations with support from Accion Venture Lab, Omidyar Network and several angel investors in 2018.
    • aminej
       
      Pula has managed to raise over 6 million $ which is good for them since they will be able to help more farmers get insurance on their products. Keeping in mind that Agricultural insurance costs 4$ in Africa compared to other places where it costs at least 1000$
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  • Agriculture insurance has traditionally relied on farm business. In the U.S. or Europe with typically large farms, an average insurance premium is $1,000. But in Africa, where smallholding or small-scale farms are the norm, the number stands at an average of $4.It is particularly telling that the value of agricultural insurance premiums in Africa represents less than 1% of the world’s total when the continent has 17% of the world’s arable land. 
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    Pula studies the risks that they might find with small scale farmers. I like this kind of behavior because you need to study every possible problem so you can outcome it the best way possible.
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    What got my attention in this article is the disparity in insurance prices (premiums) between European and African countries. We see that the premiums for insurance for African farmers are only 1% the price of insurance for European farmers. This shows the big difference in purchasing power between African and European countries.
chaimaa-rachid

WorldCover, an insurtech battling the effects of climate change - 0 views

  • WorldCover is applying insurtech solutions to climate change—a challenging global problem. Using satellite data, on-ground sensing and innovative risk modeling, the company developed a climate and weather-linked insurance product. Today, WorldCover supports and protects farmers within developing countries, who are faced with some of the worst droughts in the world due to climate change.
    • tahaemsd
       
      Worldcover's platform uses satellite data and remote sensor technology to monitor rainfall, price risk and trigger claims quickly
  • “It’s about using insurance to get rid of risk for these farmers and unlock opportunities for them,” Chris says. He says that research found that for farmers who received insurance (rather than cash grants) borrowed and invested more in their farms.
kenzabenessalah

FarmDrive: Connecting farmers to financing | Mercy Corps - 0 views

  • While financial inclusion in the country has increased, many farmers remain excluded. Limited financing for farmers is due, in part, to a lack of available credible risk-assessment information for financial institutions. Many small farmers are unbanked and off the financial grid, without credit profiles to verify or back up details on their annual income, business expenses or yields.
    • tahaemsd
       
      Without thiis information, farmers are left with little to no access to financial services, while lenders miss out on the opportunity to build their client base and agricultural loan portfolios.
  • FarmDrive generates real-time credit reports for small farmers, allowing them to access loans from financial institutions and agricultural input providers via mobile phone. 
  • FarmDrive collects expense and revenue data from farmers via SMS and combines it with satellite imaging, remote sensing technology and alternative data points (e.g., soil analysis, weather forecasts) to create detailed yield estimates and assess credit risk.
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  • FarmDrive overlaps our focus areas of agriculture and financial inclusion, empowering the world’s most vulnerable farmers with the digital financial services they need to strengthen and improve their livelihoods. 
    • mehdibella
       
      FarmDrive collects expense and revenue data from farmers and combines it with satellite imaging, remote sensing technology and alternative data points to create detailed yield estimates and assess credit risk.
  • We’ve connected FarmDrive to various partners and expertise to help them scale, as its usage increases in other developing markets in sub-Saharan Africa. 
  • Reports allow credit providers to make informed lending decisions and easily reach rural clients, expanding access to financing for small farmers. As a result, farmers have greater control over their livelihoods – equipped with what they need to increase their crop yields, improve their incomes and invest their additional revenue back into their families and communities.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      FarmDrive collects data from farmers using different technologies which allows the company to generate farmers' credit reports which allow loan providers to make informed decisions and therefore give more access to financing to small farmers.
  • Since, FarmDrive has reached hundreds of farmers with its suite of financial services, credit reports and financing options, with a particular focus on serving women and youth farmers typically neglected by the formal financial system.
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      The focus that FarmDrive has on serving women is essential to keep in mind. We must dig deep as to why they are being neglected by the financial system and make sure that they never get fooled by them in the future.
  • In Kenya, most small farmers — around 7.5 million — lack access to small loans to help them buy what they need to improve their production and make the most of their land – things like quality fertilizers, better seeds, livestock and micro-irrigation.  
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      Knowing the percentage of the population who do not own bank accounts as well as the percentages of loans that others have access to is a must to help improve the economic situation in Kenya. Such details, like interest rate, etc. are essential in helping people construct a well structured economic strategy so that all Kenyans benefit from these financial services and never fall back again.
hichamachir

He Grew Up on a Farm. Now, He Helps Protect Them. - The New York Times - 0 views

  • If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be running a company that does agriculture insurance, I would not have believed you. Agriculture has not been an area that people have invested in across Africa. Many of my cousins and childhood friends still work on their farms, but they are reluctant to invest, putting in only what they can afford to lose.The reason they don’t invest is simple. The chance of them losing their money due to the vagaries of the weather is huge. Working in insurance got me to understand about probabilities of loss early on — probabilities that cause our continent to be food insecure.
  • Pula’s mission is to give farmers confidence by providing risk mitigation. Our solutions protect a farmer’s investment by pairing it with insurance. We build business cases to persuade Fortune 500 companies, seed and fertilizer suppliers, lending institutions, and governments in Africa, that embedded insurance will help deliver better results for both businesses and food security.
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    This article shows how investments in the insurtech industry have grown in Africa over thas past years. It explains the different reasons why people were reluctant to invest in this industry, especially in Africa. The article also explains how the founder of Pula, who was originally a farmer himself, came up with an innovative idea to protect farmers from weather uncertainty.
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    I like they way Pula stated that its mission is to protect farmers. Pula is playing it smart by talking about customer protection because it makes the customers feel safe.
tahaemsd

How Can Insurance Help Smallholder Farmers? | by Maelis Carraro | Finance for Life | Me... - 0 views

  • Robert is a father of four and lives in the rural areas at the outskirts of Tamale, in northern Ghana. He lives off his one hectare of land where he grows maize and groundnuts. He sells part of it to the local market and eats the rest with his family. Like many of the 475 million smallholder farmers around the world, he faces constant threats of droughts or other weather hazards that can destroy his family’s main source of subsistence: Crops. Ninety percent of farmers in Africa have no access to crop insurance or other safety net.
  • WorldCover addresses this problem by providing farmers with simple and affordable microinsurance policies, insuring their crops against the risk of drought. Microinsurance and farmers receive rapid payout in cases of drought during the crop growth period. WorldCover ran a full pilot project in 2015 among Rice and Sorghum farmers and signed up a significant number of farmers, with many more committed.
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    We understand from this article that there is a real struggle for crop farmers in Africa when it comes to droughts or other weather hazards. World Cover has come up with a solution for these farmers by providing them micro insurance that is very cheap and that could be bought and used with their mobile phone.
mohammed_ab

'Smart' insurance helps poor farmers to cut risk | Financial Times - 1 views

  • The policies or “smart contracts” currently under development are based on blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. This avoids the need for paperwork and means payouts can be triggered automatically when certain conditions are met, such as a specific number of days of drought. The system uses high-resolution satellite images to detect rainfall and plant growth data.Conventional crop insurance is too expensive for more than 500m small farmers worldwide, says Christopher Sheehan, founder and chief executive of US-based WorldCover, which developed the system. “But with machine learning and blockchain technology, we can process these data very cheaply to produce a really simple crop insurance product with premiums of $20 to $50 for a farmer who might only be earning $3,000 a year.” Payments can be made using mobile money transfer services such as M-Pesa.
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    I think that this article highlights the main benefits of blockchain technology on the insurance industry. It shows how blockchain has enabled easy and quick transactions to take place in the insurance world especially crop insurance. This technology has enabled companies like WorldCover to offer cheap insurance contracts for crop farmers to help them hedge against weather risks.
ayachehbouni

FarmDrive in Kenya | Future Young Leaders - 0 views

  • In addition to the validated farm-level data collected through the app, FarmDrive also collects big data from satellite companies, weather stations, government agencies, and more. Using these aggregated data, the model generates credit scores and provides automated decisioning tools that enable financial institutions to develop loan products that fit the economic and agronomic needs of smallholder farmers.
    • hibaerrai
       
      FarmDrive makes sure to gather all possible data from different agencies and using different models to provide their clients with suitable loan deals. This supports automated financial services and better risk assessment.
  • In 2016 FarmDrive completed the initial phase of product-market fit in partnership with a Kenyan MFI. Through this pilot over KES 15 mil (USD 150,000) in loans were disbursed throughout 16 counties in Kenya. The pilot served as a proof point that better risk assessment can unlock capital for smallholder farmers, and informs the product development we’re doing today to drive more capital to farmers
    • ayachehbouni
       
      The achievements of FarmDrive exceed what was expected. That is thanks to, along with other things, the partnerships it had that allowed to provide more and extend its reach.
kenzabenessalah

Lumkani - 0 views

  • As part of Lumkani’s mission to mitigate the loss of life and property caused by fires in South Africa and across the globe, we implement large scale roll-outs of our fire detection system into urban informal settlements and townships.
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      Before Lumkani was introduced, there was very little hope for people to rebuild their houses when fire erupted. Making this business known could help save plenty of lives.
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      Before Lumkani was introduced, there was very little hope for people to rebuild their houses when fire erupted. Making this business known could help save plenty of lives.
  • Before Lumkani introduced Fire Cover in 2016, there was little hope for households and businesses that had been excluded from insurance cover, to quickly rebuild, refurnish and return to a state of dignity.
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      This excerpt is important because it highlights how beneficial and essential the concept of the company is. It helped protect people's homes and reassure them that their households would return to their original state.
  • For only R60 per month, you get: A Lumkani Fire Alarm that warns you when fire breaks out. Cover for your home or business structure and all of your belongings/stock for up to R40,000 provided by Hollard. There is no waiting period, you are protected immediately after your first payment.Foreign Nationals may apply.No documentation required to apply..properties we protect: Informal homes Small homes and low-cost homes (RDPs) Small businesses
    • tahaemsd
       
      Details of what is covered by the LUMKANI company
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Lumkani is a technology company which distributes insurance products to financially excluded households and businesses in townships and informal settlements. We use our award-winning fire detectors to mitigate the risk of fires and a world-first insurance product to cover losses when disasters occur. We have distributed tens of thousands of fire alarms to homes across South Africa which have drastically lowered the instances of fires in our communities, ensuring that those who are most vulnerable have a sense of security. Tens of millions of Rands of possible fire damage have been saved through our early-warning fire detectors.
    • aminej
       
      I think that this is an excellent idea since it will help many people in rural areas who very often suffer from losses due to weather or natural disasters and also a very weak infrastructure. It will also bring more unbanked people to learn about different services of insurance and finance.
  • Fires destroy homes, belongings and businesses which leads to personal and financial insecurity. We provide protection against fires to informal homes, small homes, RDPs and small businesses
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      Having such a concept is essential to the community because it deals with one of most popular issues in the world; financial insecurity
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    LUMKANI launched indeed a networked heat detector to protect people's properties.
nourserghini

BiSmart - 0 views

  • Bismart Insurance enables the uninsured African population to access Insurance through co-creating relevant products with existing affinity groups like saccos, schools, welfare groups, Micro-finance institutions etc and connecting them to insurance companies through technology. 
    • tahaemsd
       
      customers are able to review and rate their insurance providers based on their experience
  • Bismart Insurance enables the uninsured African population to access Insurance through co-creating relevant products with existing affinity groups like saccos, schools, welfare groups, Micro-finance institutions etc and connecting them to insurance companies through technology.  At Bismart platform customers are able to reveiw and rate their insurance providers based on their experience, this forces insurance players to compete in giving our customers the best customer experience.
    • aminej
       
      I love this concept because it will help many Africans to be protected against different types of risks such as natural disaster, theft, weather conditions. It will also reduce the number of unbanked people across the African continent
  • At Bismart platform customers are able to reveiw and rate their insurance providers based on their experience, this forces insurance players to compete in giving our customers the best customer experience.We enable customers to compare insurance policies from muiltiple providers not just based on price but based on benefits, exclusions and other customers reviews.
    • nourserghini
       
      Bismart allows customers to compare their insurance providers' services based on price, benefits, exclusions and reviews.
hindelquarrouti

Digital spillovers and SMEs' performance in Sub-Saharan Africa - 1 views

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    Worldcover, a fintech company that focuses on hedging natural risk, is offering blockchain-enabled weather indexed insurances for cultivators in Uganda, Kenya and Ghana.
mohammed_ab

Products and Services - Pula - 0 views

  • We design and deliver best in class agriculture index insurance products to protect farmers
  • Pula handles end to end management of the delivery of insurance to farmers, including field operations, farmer onboarding/education and claims assessment and payouts.
  •  
    Pula products offerings target African farmers who have difficulties paying for expensive insurance. They act as an intermediary between local insurance and global reinsurance companies and farmers to minimize weather risk on their crops.
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