What do the starving poor in India need? Or, for that matter, what do those living in the most remote and desolate areas of Uganda need? Well, according to an article in the Feb. 12 issue of The Wall Street Journal, some U.S. companies have taken it upon themselves to provide for people in these regions the most basic of necessities. No, it’s not clean water, food or safe shelter; it’s insurance.
According to the article, people living in India can buy insurance for their cow for a mere $10 annually. Some of the people living in these developing countries who have applied for the insurance don’t even know their real age and are still being approved for life insurance.
For most people living in the United States, life insurance is a secondary priority after other, more immediate concerns like water, food and safety. But that doesn’t seem to faze American International Group Inc., which is still pursuing people in poor countries as a new crop of potential buyers and an unsown market brimming with possibilities.
One would hope that corporate consciousness would take over right about now, saying that selling poor people superfluous insurance policies is immoral. Instead, according to the article in The Wall Street Journal, these companies anticipate more expansion in countries like Mexico, Brazil, Romania and Nicaragua and have projected growth on all continents.
The life insurance policies being sold to people in developing countries aren’t entirely bad, though. In the article, The Wall Street Journal reporter spoke to a Ugandan man who said that he didn’t know that his mother even had life insurance until she was killed in a car crash. He received a payment of $650, which he said would help him take care of his family.
Instead of insurance companies giving their clients abroad the runaround they are so infamous for here in the U.S., they are actually coming forward and being forthright about what a client deserves. Either that, or seeding a new generation of potential customers.
The people living in Uganda have been terrorized by the Lord’s Resistance Army for nearly two decades, fearing that their children might be kidnapped in the night and forced to become soldiers in a government resistance movement centered around bogus ideals.
Three film students from Southern California even went to Uganda to document these “invisible children” sleeping in hospital corridors and in poor shoddy shelters away from their homes just to escape the possible fate of becoming another child soldier.
Those living in India have equally immediate concerns, often living in what many Americans would deem squalor. Only 59 percent of those living in India can read, there is high risk for food and water borne diseases, about 5.1 million people are living with HIV or AIDS in the country, and not to mention the 25 percent of people in India who live below the poverty line, according to the CIA World Factbook.
The last thing people living in these countries need is life insurance. Yes, life does seem to be threatened by many things for people in poor countries, but instead of treating the effects of living in a dangerous country, maybe companies could begin to treat the causes of such problems. Sell, or, God forbid, give people clean water. Provide them with food.
The immediate deterrent for such action is that treating the causes is less profitable. Companies have already proven in the U.S. that it is tremendously beneficial for them to sell people things they don’t really need. Now they’re just expanding this strategy to a different market of consumers.
