By Justin Mkweu
Tiwonge Kamwana is a 46-year-old woman who used to import clothes from Tanzania before Covid-19 hit, which sent her business tumbling down.
To sustain her life, she ventured into farming and was lucky to access a loan from the then National Economic Empowerment Fund (NEEF), which forced her to buy crop insurance from CIC Insurance.
She narrates that the loan was supposed to be worth K10 million but she received fertilizer worth K7 million as K3 million was used to buy the insurance.
Since her farm was hit by drought and she did not realise any yield, she made an effort to claim the insurance but the company, CIC Insurance, has not paid her.
“I am stranded because when I called the insurance company, they said they do not know when they will pay our claims,” Kamwana says.
Her story is similar to a group of five farmers called Mitawa Men, who were given 12 bags of fertilizer each as loans instead of 15 bags, on the understanding that three bags had gone towards buying crop insurance.
The group’s General Secretary Brian Chima says they have tried all they can to get the claimed insurance without much success.
“It is not only Mitawa Men Club but there are a lot of other clubs that are crying, people are crying,” Chima adds.
Now NEEF is on their neck as it wants its money back but these farmers have nothing to give NEEF and their lives are in jeopardy.
These are but just a few people who had put their trust in crop insurance but have ended up being disappointed.
In an interview with MBC, CIC Insurance Head of Marketing and Customer Experience, Elsie Alfonso, was quick to say that the matter is in court and therefore they are tongue-tied.
She added that considering the structure of their contract, their obligations are limited to NEEF.
“Providing comments on this issue would therefore constitute a breach of our contractual agreement. In this regard, NEEF would be better placed to provide the relevant information, in accordance with the terms communicated to their beneficiaries,” she said.
NEEF Chief Executive Officer Kaisi Sadala says they are aware of the concerns by the farmers and those who bought insurance consist 2 percent.
Sadala further says they are working closely with CIC Insurance and relevant partners to verify the reported cases to ensure that policy conditions are correctly interpreted, and facilitate dialogue so that any legitimate claims are addressed in accordance with the insurance agreements.
“We further wish to assure all our insured clients that their claims will be processed and settled as soon as all appropriate assessments are completed,” Sadala added.
The insurance sector is regulated by the Reserve Bank of Malawi and in an interview with MBC, RBM Governor George Partridge indicated that since he is new, he is yet to be appraised about the issue.
“I do not think it is proper to comment on something that is involving just one institution because maybe the investigations are still going on,” he said.
Agriculturalist Leonard Chimwaza believes a clear guideline should be put in place to protect the farmers.
“The company could have given a very good example, so that adoption of this policy should be escalated across the farming community otherwise we need an act so that farmers are protected,” Chimwaza said.
At the end of the day, crop insurance should not lead to disappointments because it is the one facility that is supposed to protect local farmers, just as it is in other countries where its uptake is on the rise.
For example in Kenya, there is a company called Pula which offers crop insurance to smallholder farmers in that country.
At present, 2.8 million farmers who were affected by natural calamities such as floods and droughts since the product’s inception have been paid up to 133.9 million dollars.
The regulator and CIC Insurance should therefore pull up their socks in helping the farmers.
