Farzanah Chowdhury

Over the last several years, Green Delta Insurance Company (GDIC) has emerged as one of the country's leading insurance providers.

And although the company has done well in areas such as conventional insurance, it did not limit itself to that domain.

The general insurer has gone beyond that known territory with the objective to bring millions of underserved and marginalised people into the umbrella of insurance and provide them a hedge against health, natural disasters and other risks and shocks.

Having begun this journey back in 2011-12, the GDIC in association with the Institute of Microfinance started working in Mymensingh to provide micro-health insurance to poor people in the area through the Community Based Medical College Hospital. 

Under the scheme, insured people would get up to Tk 40,000 as healthcare coverage by paying Tk 1,700 annually. The health insurance holder would be able to stay up to 21 days in the hospital without cost.

The initiative later worked well when it was assigned by the health ministry to manage claims of its Shasthyo Surokhsha Karmasuchi (SSK), a micro health insurance programme for poor people in Tangail.

The health and family welfare ministry launched the social health protection scheme in 2016 across three upazilas -- Kalihati, Ghatail and Modhupur -- under Tangail.

It had selected GDIC as the SSK's scheme operator and so the insurance company began enrolling beneficiaries for the programme based on a baseline survey done by the health ministry to identify people below the poverty line.

"That is how the journey started," said Farzanah Chowdhury, managing director and CEO of GDIC.

However, the job of registering beneficiaries was not easy. GDIC established booths in the localities to enrol beneficiaries but the targeted people were shy as they could not understand the benefit of the health insurance.

"It was beyond their imagination that they would get insurance coverage for certain diseases," she said.

Then, GDIC hired 25 agents to register beneficiaries by visiting door to door.

"This is how registration started," Chowdhury added.

Under the scheme, beneficiaries get coverage for 78 diseases, such as appendicitis, caesarean delivery and minor surgery, free of cost as the government bears the expenses under the SSK.

As a scheme operator, GDIC works to manage and process claims as well as monitor registration.

The project started at Kalihati of Tangail district with 27,000 families and was later expanded to two other upazilas in 2017.

So far, the insurer has directly served almost 82,000 households and indirectly served 650,000 people across three upazilas of Tangail.

People began to show their confidence in insurance coverage after they started to receive their claims, according to Chowdhury.

The insurance company did not stop here though. With farmers facing losses for crop damage almost regularly due to natural disasters like floods and cyclones, GDIC introduced a weather index based agricultural insurance in 2015.

It takes 32-year weather data such as rainfall, temperature, relative humidity and wind speed, into account to design a product. And then, the GDIC monitors a 10-kilometre coverage area through a radius based interpolated data station and unique web-based software.

Under the index based crop insurance, GDIC has provided support to nearly 50,000 farmers and claims to more than 12,000 plus farmers.

The GDIC offers insurance for 20 crops, including rice, wheat, maize and tomato.

"We have reached 36 districts with livestock insurance," said Shubhasish Barua, head of impact business and executive vice president of GDIC.

Until recently, it provided services to 837 households, where the sum insured was $1.49 million.

This is also technology based. Under the initiative, it monitors cattle through radio-frequency.

The insurer also partnered with OXFAM Bangladesh and the Sancred Welfare Foundation (SWF) to provide support to flood index insurance to farmers in the country's hoar areas.

Encouraged by the past success of the SSK scheme, the government decided to expand the coverage of the social health protection programme to more upazilas this year.

And so, GDIC has been tasked to manage the SSK scheme in four more upazilas in Tangail and will enrol 100,000 families from these areas, Barua said.

For its efforts, GDIC was recently recognised by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Alongside Denim Expert, the WEF gave an honourable mention to GDIC for the 'Excellence in Sustainability' category for its engagement in providing affordable universal health coverage.

The company impacts 82,000 households directly and 65,000 people indirectly, the WEF said.

"My team is encouraged and now we will go at a higher speed. This recognition is really very prestigious and it encourages us to take more risk and reach out to 17 crore people of the country as soon as possible through the right products and services," said GDIC CEO Chowdhury.

"One of the successes in this sustainability project is that we have people from different industries to work for us. We have doctors, engineers and ICT experts," she added.

She went on to say that GDIC has strengthened its technology platform and is working to provide services for all its insurance products through technology.

The insurance company aims to provide a solution to the issues faced by common people through insurance.

"A solution that would impact their livelihoods," she said.

To ensure sustainability of insurance schemes for health and crop, Chowdhury said insurance is a major component for attaining the country's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

She also said this sort of project will become sustainable if technology can be embraced.

The GDIC managing director and CEO urged for investments in people, cost reduction, higher economies of scale; adoption of technology and skill enhancement.

There is still a lack of confidence regarding insurance among people that claims are not paid and this is one of the reasons that insurance penetration is very low in the country.

Gaining the people's trust will facilitate the insurance sector to expand, she said.

"It takes time to win the confidence of poor people but when it comes, it does not go. Winning the confidence of underserved people is one of the keys," said Chowdhury, who was recognised as an SDG pioneer.

"Believe in people, believe in the dream and believe in the country's economic growth, you will flourish. This is actually helping us grow because we are a growing economy and success will not come unless we invest in people," she added.