Insurance helps 46,000 women avoid deadly work in heat waves
In the city of Ahmedabad in western India, temperatures climbed above 43C (109F) every day between May 19 and May 25, creating deadly hot working conditions for many of the laborers who keep the local economy humming.
For 40-year-old Lataben Arvindbhai Makwana, it was too unbearable to run her sewing machine inside her tin-roofed house, which has little ventilation and only a small ceiling fan. As a daily wage labourer, that meant she was not earning the money she needed to feed her kids and buy blood pressure medication for herself.
“It’s getting worse every summer,” Makwana said. The extreme heat is especially dangerous for people like her who suffer from hypertension.
With climate change raising temperatures during heat waves, millions of Indians face a difficult choice: work in dangerous conditions or go hungry. But some women like Makwana are now getting help from a program to make a third choice: stop working for at least a few hours.
As soon as temperatures breached 43.6C in Ahmedabad, Makwana and thousands of other women were told that ICICI Lombard, an insurance company, would pay them a portion of their daily wages. The program uses parametric insurance, which pays out when a particular metric is hit, such as a daily high temperature.
More than 46,000 women across 22 districts in India were paid $340,000 in total over last month’s heat waves. About 50,000 women are enrolled in the program. Makwana’s insurance payout was ₹750 ($9), enough to cover food and medication for a few days. (That sum came on top of a separate charity payout of ₹400 when the temperature breached 40C the first time.)