According to Inter Press Service News (IPS), Kenya’s pastoral livestock sector is worth $800 million. Before the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI) insurance pilot program came along in 2012, few of the 8,000 northern Kenya pastoralists had resources to combat drought and cattle rustlers.

Now, 4,000 pastoralists have jumped on the insurance program bandwagon to ensure that income — regardless of drought — will continue to flow.

“I joined in 2012, and since then I have been paid for lost livestock on two occasions, including in March this year,” Hussein Ahmed, a pastoralist told IPS. “I was running away from armed cattle rustlers who came to steal animals that were spared by the drought. During the 250 km journey from Marsabit to Ethiopia I lost all my animals due to the lack of pasture and water.”

The NGO insurance program — backed by subsidies from the EU, the Agency for International Development of Australia and the UK’s Department for International Development — offers varying animal premiums and payments contingent on agricultural resources, IPS reported.

For roughly $20 per year, Marsabit pastoralist Yusuf Aden says he’s happy to know that more than 10 goats are covered under the program. Affordability isn’t a concern as it only takes the selling of one goat to insure 10 — the minimum number of livestock required to receive the service.

Most herders have said the program is helpful and beneficial to their entire family as food consumption doesn’t have to be sacrificed in the face of an unfavorable event.

“Insured households have experienced a 33 percent drop in the likelihood of reducing their nutritional intake, a 50 percent drop in distress sales of livestock [this happens when there is drought] and 33 percent in their food aid reliance,” Andrew Mude, ILRI livestock insurance head told IPS.

“[The insurance] aims to compensate clients in the event of a loss but unlike traditional insurance, which makes payouts based on case-by-case assessments of individual clients’ loss realisations, this livestock insurance pays policy holders based on an external indicator, such as the availability of pasture,” he said.

Unpredictable climate patterns have encouraged traditional insurance providers to hold off on providing similar plans. Still, insurance broker Beatrice Wambui believes an insurance shift which supports more pastoralists will be implemented — even if some companies have started on “a very small scale and are unwilling to advertise it,” she said.

“Insuring against nature is a risky business, you have no control over climate…But in areas where livestock insurance is working, and if companies can find ways to be in a win-win situation with herders, this product is changing lives,” Wambui told IPS.

ILRI Insurance has been made available in the Kenyan counties of Marsabit, Isiolo and Wajir. In southern Ethiopia, pastoralists of Borana can take advantage of insurance offerings. The program, based on success in Kenya, is looking to expand across Ethiopia.