Nana Yaa Konadu's Story

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Nana Yaa Konadu, a long time Tigo customer, came into Tigo’s head office in Accra on 25 August, 2010 to register her SIM card. Little did she know that her relationship with Tigo would soon be so valuable for her and her family.

The Tigo agent introduced Nana to a new product called Tigo Family Care Insurance. The product, first of its kind in West Africa, offers free life insurance to Tigo subscribers based on their usage of the Tigo network. The insurance covers the life of the subscriber, like Nana, and one member of her family, offering payouts between 200 - 1,000 cedis (approximately $130 - $660) depending on monthly usage.

Nana chose to enrol in the product and registered her father, Eugene Amankwa Osei. Eugene, aged 63, had recently retired after a long career as a teacher in Dansoman. Nana and her daddy had a special bond and he was very important in her life: this was why Nana named him on the insurance form at enrolment.

For several months after enrolment, Nana received an SMS message once per month to inform her about how much insurance she had earned each month, based on her usage during the previous month. A loyal Tigo customer, Nana regularly earned between 600-1,000 cedis (approximately $395 - $660) as her monthly insurance cover.

On Christmas Eve, 2010, Eugene met his daughter early in the morning and told her he was feeling feverish. He was taken to the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital, where he stayed for the day. Nana looked in after him during the day, and everything seemed to be fine. However, after she went to bed that night, Nana was awakened by a worried phone call from her mother, Joyce: Eugene had suffered a heart attack. At 3am on Christmas morning, Nana’s beloved father passed away.

Nana was heartbroken to have lost her father. However, soon after her father’s death, Nana remembered her Tigo Family Care Insurance policy, so she called MicroEnsure’s customer care line to make a claim. Because she had already obtained her father’s ID card and a document as evidence of death, MicroEnsure collected the documents from her that same day and forwarded all materials to the insurer, Vanguard Life. Vanguard Life paid the claim within two days, and MicroEnsure and Tigo jointly presented Nana Yaa with a cheque at her workplace. Nana was overjoyed to receive the 800 cedis (approximately $530) she was due as a loyal Tigo user, and she said the money would be used to pay for burial costs for her father.

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