Tigo Ghana’s innovative mobile-based insurance scheme, Tigo Mobile Insurance, was adjudged the Best Innovative Mobile Product of the Year at the Second Mobileworld Ghana Telecoms Awards. That was Tigo's maiden award at the industry honours since it started last year. Acting CEO of Tigo Ghana, Obafemi Banigbe told journalists the insurance scheme was fantastic because it enabled people who were not able to pay the usually high monthly premiums on mainstream insurance products, to have access to low-premium insurance scheme that the Tigo Mobile Insurance offered. He noted that the mobile phone had become part of people’s lifestyle, and that had driven the voice market to a point of near saturation, making it incumbent on all operators to develop other relevant services and products for their customers. “We looked at the insurance market in Africa and realized not many insurance products are targeted at the low-end customers - even though most of those people need insurance they can’t pay for it because of the high premium,” Obafemi Banigbe said. He noted that there were people whose insurance cover was just GHC1,000 but such people may not have a place in the scheme of things of the mainstream insurance companies. Mr. Banigbe said Tigo therefore thought of helping to improve the quality of life of their low-end customers by just encouraging them to use some of their talk time to secure a future for themselves through Tigo Mobile Insurance. "That was not difficult because people already talk a lot so the more you buy credit and talk you contribute to your insurance premium that entitles you to claims when necessary," he said. He said beyond providing insurance services, the scheme also brought banking to the doorstep of customers who otherwise did not have access to banking services. “We are packaging insurance as a loyalty scheme as well – so we have the premium and free models depending on what is relevant to each individual customer – and we have since been paying claims to several customers on both the premium and free models,” he said. Mr. Banigbe said the Ghanaian mobile market was challenging and Tigo had realized that the way to go was to deliver value by churning out products and services that are absolutely relevant to customers and would be used optimally. “That is why at Tigo we focus on value and not just on how many customers we have but on how much of our customers are getting value on our network,” he said. He noted that in the midst of multi-simming, where several mobile users in Ghana had more than one SIM, the challenge for each operator was to ensure that it became the preferred network for anyone who had other SIMs. “Tigo is constantly doing research to find out how we can bring relevant products to our customers so that the Tigo network will remain the preferred network for everyone who has other SIMs in addition to their Tigo SIM.” he said. Mr. Banigbe said the award was an encouragement to Tigo to keep researching and churning out more customer-centric products, adding that it should equally be an encouragement to those who did not win laurels to work harder and rise to the occasion next time round. In all, 18 awards were give away, comprising 15 competitive awards and three honorary awards.