In a move that resembles a vote of confidence for the start-up, Allianz Africa renewed its multi-year partnership with OKO. Allianz and OKO initially signed an agreement in 2019 to test OKO’s concept in Mali. OKO offered an affordable and automated climate insurance accessible for the first time via mobile phone to smallholder farmers. 4 years later it is the most popular crop insurance in Mali. OKO uses parametric insurance technology, meaning that insurance claims are automatically validated and paid if satellite data shows that the weather conditions were very detrimental to the agricultural activity. It covers events such as droughts and floods. As previously, the collaboration consists in OKO bringing its data-science expertise and its mobile distribution technology, while Allianz will assist in underwriting and re-insuring the crop insurance products. This new version of the partnership is meant to prepare for geographical expansion to new countries in the continent, and to strengthen the link between the two organizations. In fact, OKO already expanded to Uganda (with JubileeAllianz) and Ivory Coast (with Allianz Côte d’Ivoire). OKO and Allianz also won together the Ambitious Insurer award at the 2023 InsurTech Insight conference.
Simon Schwall
According to OKO’s CEO Simon Schwall “Our partnership with Allianz has been key to our success so far. It is giving us the capacity to work with large agricultural projects and increase our reach to most of Africa. We are looking forward to achieving our joint ambition to make agriculture more resilient to climate risks together with the largest agricultural players on the continent”.
Delphine Traoré, CEO at Allianz Africa explains: “In the past few years it has become clear that climate insurance is becoming a priority for small businesses, industries, and governments. (…) We found in OKO a reliable partner that accelerates our innovation in this field”
