ZEP-RE, a reinsurance company based in Nairobi, Kenya, has partnered with data provider Planet Labs to expand its drought insurance program in the Horn of Africa (HOA) region.
The reinsurer plans to leverage Planet’s Basemaps products to measure the health of vegetation in an area of more than 600,000 square kilometers of East Africa.
ZEP-RE will also use data from Planet as its independent calculation agent to quantify conditions and provide metrics to measure drought and scale its risk calculation capabilities.
The result will be an insurance program that will support more than 250,000 herders in the HOA region, as well as a drought index that can be customized by locations to determine payout amounts, generate premium rates, and enable faster claims. .
“At Planet, we are excited to contribute data to support the livelihoods of pastoralists in Africa with ZEP-RE,” said Kevin Weil, President of Products and Business at Planet.
“We believe that our data is a powerful and unique source of information for index-based agricultural insurance, and that it can bring value to vulnerable communities in their daily lives.”
ZEP-RE is the implementing agent for DRIVE, a regional project financed by the World Bank in partnership with the governments of the four countries participating in the HOA; Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
“We are delighted to begin using Planet’s satellite data for the HOA DRIVE index-based livestock insurance product. With the reliability and quality of data from Planet, we can normalize the flow with our existing data and seamlessly transition to continue our business model in the future,” said Ronald Kasapatu, Director of Agriculture and Microinsurance at ZEP-RE .
