Publication Details
Next frontiers in microinsurance
client value and efficiency
Craig Churchill
Michal Matu
2010
Abstract
Microinsurance is growing every year at 30-50% rate. Currently around 135 million, or 5%, of low income people in developing countries are using microinsurance products to better manage risks and smooth their way out of poverty. Even with such growth, there are clearly significant gaps that should be addressed to ensure greater access and improve the impact of microinsurance. Demand is constrained, among other things, by low insurance literacy, limited capacity to pay, lack of trust and questionable value of some of the offerings. Supply is challenged by limited distribution channels, inefficiency of business processes and systems, as well as the limited pool of skilled experts who can champion new product development and expansion.
At the same time, lots of experimentation is taking place, including almost 40 innovation projects supported by the ILO’s Microinsurance Innovation Facility. Innovations in distribution models, health and agriculture insurance products as well as in consumer education promise to pave the way for greater scale and impact. Based on a stocktaking of current practice, this paper identifies up to fifteen key areas for improvement and discusses practical solutions that were tested in the field. Its main goal is to push microinsurance frontiers in the next decade by showing practitioners and policy makers: how we can increase client value from microinsurance products to broader population, to what extent and under which circumstances the poorest can benefit from it, and how to scale up and improve efficiency.
Publication Type(s)
Conference Paper
Ten Years of War Against Poverty Conference Papers
Conference: Ten Years of War Against Poverty