Plagued by tropical storms, floods and hurricanes that have killed hundreds of thousands of people and left even more destitute, Haiti has a long history with Mother Nature. Then on Jan. 12, she struck the country with yet another blow.

Almost six months after the earthquake, more than one million people remain homeless, and hundreds of thousands continue to live in squalid tent cities. For the Haitian people, the time that has passed has little significance other than to highlight the lack of progress made toward rebuilding their lives.

Those of us working in Haiti understand the challenges and frustrations of this impossibly slow pace. We are still in emergency mode, trying to safeguard Haitians from overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions and opportunists looking to make a quick dollar. But right now, it’s also important to find proactive solutions to protect people from future natural disasters, especially with hurricane season under way.

Given the region’s susceptibility to natural disasters, political tumult and economic instability, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have consistently worked with the people of Haiti to support sustainable enterprises in the region, only to see many small business owners lose everything to storms, and now, earthquakes.

One of our clients, from Gonaives, spent almost a decade successfully working her way out of poverty. With microfinance loans, she created a business selling plastic containers.

In 2004, she and her children watched from their roof as flooding from a tropical storm took away her livelihood. She rebuilt her business with another microloan proving that her spirit, while bruised, was not broken. Then in 2008, it happened again when three hurricanes and a tropical storm slammed into the country. Once more, she lost everything and had to start over. It’s a vicious cycle that traps so many in Haiti.

Microfinance has been used to support Haiti’s development in the past, but it is also a way to protect people’s assets in the future. Client protection is central to the mission of microfinance and is the focus of an industry-wide collaboration called The Smart Campaign, which is asking MFIs around the world to incorporate six core Client Protection Principles in their business operations.

Preventing against over-indebtedness is one of those principles. In a natural disaster the possibility of over-indebtedness escalates, but financial institutions and their partners can mitigate that potential by adopting a client-protection mindset and coupling it with products that help clients build, save and insure what they’ve created.

After watching so many clients painstakingly rebuild after the storms, we developed a catastrophic-loss insurance product and had planned on launching it in January. When the earthquake hit -- with help from MercyCorps, The MasterCard Foundation and the American Red Cross -- we were, fortunately, in a position to immediately move forward as if a catastrophic-insurance program was already in place.

Clients who lost their homes, business or both received the benefits of the program despite not having paid for the plan in advance. They received an indemnity of 5,000 Haitian gourdes (the equivalent of $128 U.S. dollars) and will have their outstanding pre-earthquake debt reimbursed, as well as receive a new loan when they are ready to recapitalize their businesses.