300 households who were affected by the recent floods in Mororo and Madogo areas in Tana River County have received insurance claim payouts from Britam to help themselves in rebuilding their houses or buying items which they lost during the floods.
Initially, Oxfam had supported the households to pay premium subscription for the insurance at Ksh 700 and the payout for this will be Ksh 47,000.
The money will be disbursed in three phases (months) where the first and the second payout will see the households receive Ksh 12,109 for each while the remaining balance will be paid on the final phase.
According to Britam’s Director for Emerging Consumers Saurabh Sharma the firm is seeking to bring on board the county government of Tana River and other stakeholders to reach a large population of victims and also find a long term solution for the flood menace in the area.
“I lead the initiatives around climate insurance where we are looking to develop innovative new insurance products to see how our communities exposed to natural disasters can be protected. We are here to pay the first claim payout amounting to Ksh 14 million to households who were covered under floods insurance police in partnership with Oxfam,” Sharma said.
“We have seen that the El Nino has caused a lot of adverse effects in these communities and we are seeing a lot of people still staying at the IDP camps and we are happy that this claim payout to these households will help them to recover faster,” Sharma added.
David Ambutho, Social protection strategies officer at Oxfam said that his organization focuses on humanitarian interventions to support vulnerable communities affected by crises such as the recent floods in Tana River County.
Ambutho said that the Flood insurance policy addresses the residual risks that other interventions such as mitigation or adaptation measures cannot address.
“300 hundred households who were displaced by floods in this camp have received payout from Britam and this is the first flood insurance in Kenya. This is not a program in isolation because we have other programs on resilient building,” Ambutho said.
“We are keen to also ensure that other livelihood options are also explored so that together with other stakeholders including the county governments we bring up ways of protecting the most vulnerable,” he added.
Tana River Deputy Governor Mahat Loka expressed the commitment of the county government to move people permanently from the flood prone areas along River Tana so that they avoid frequent loss of life and property.
“We are working on a plan to move our people from areas of frequent floods. The main challenge is that some people do not want to move even if we look for alternative land on high grounds and so we are urging them to be ready to move once we finalize the plans,” Loka said.
