AT least 344 Tanzanians have bought the Faraja insurance cover offered by Vodacom through M-Pesa in collaboration with Heritage Tanzania.

"To date 344 Tanzanians have bought Faraja -- a funeral cover -- which is paid out in the event of a policy holder's passing away," says Heritage Tanzania Head of Insurance, Mr Joseph Mardai.

"Vodacom provides free insurance cover (Funeral Benefit) for one month which has a value of 200,000/- if a registered customer does at least 10 M-Pesa cash transactions per month. "For example, if a customer does 10 money transfer transactions in January, he/ she will get 200,000/- free insurance cover in February," he said.

He said in November, 169,117 customers qualified for Vodacom's free cover. The free Funeral Benefit cover is valid for only one month. To keep the free cover active, the customer will need to continue doing at least 10 Money transfer transactions on M-Pesa every month.