Kathmandu. South Africa’s First for Women campaign has proved the difference between the general perception and reality about women-targeted insurance wrong. The program, which has been running since 2004, focuses on creating and selling insurance plans targeting women.
According to micro insurance network, annual report 2024, over the course of two decades under this program, the first woman has grown to serve more than 250,000 customers.
The company designs every aspect of its products and processes with women in mind. It quickly discovered that assumptions about women’s preferences were often inaccurate. Understanding and meeting the needs of women in the country required careful customer research, as well as systematically collecting and responding to customer responses.
For example, one assumption was that female customers prefer to talk to female call center employees. But in the course of the work, it was confirmed that it is not mandatory or more effective for women to take the initiative to sell insurance to women. Its female customers were happy to talk to male employees, but wanted time to ask all their questions in a sympathetic, hasty and decision-free place before arriving at a decision.
First for Women has a relatively long trial period of six months for all employees, which includes lengthy brand induction and extensive soft ship training to ensure they can create this environment for their customers. This is especially important because the vast majority of First for Women’s sales are done through its customer service center (call center).
When designing the insurance policies, First for Women found safety to be a major concern for women in South Africa. Its products are therefore designed with additional services to ensure the safety of customers during a claims event. For example, motor insurance customers benefit from the company’s ‘Guardian Angels’: this service is available 24 hours a day. Insured women can use this app to ask for help when their vehicles are damaged on the way or in an accident. ‘Guardian Angels’ ensures that the insured woman is safe at the scene of the incident and then safely transports her home.
All customers also benefit from the virtual panic button and travel monitoring service to use whenever needed through the First for Women app.
When the company introduced business insurance for women entrepreneurs, it found that their needs went beyond traditional insurance cover. So the business started providing additional services such as website design and marketing support to help its customers grow their business.
However, First for Women initially provided solutions for middle-income women. In the second phase, it introduced low-cost insurance plans to address the needs of women with limited resources.
