Background

Insurance serves as a crucial mechanism for protecting individuals and businesses from unforeseen risks. Despite notable progress in extending insurance to underserved markets over the past 20 years, many insurers remain hesitant to invest in product development to serve less affluent markets. This reluctance limits the necessary insurance supply to small businesses, smallholder farmers, low-income households and other under-served market segments. Furthermore, with the growing threat posed by climate change, this issue needs to be addressed urgently. It is a critical time to double efforts and ensure that insurance solutions enable a broader population to effectively manage risks and avoid disruption to productive work.

Purpose

The ILO's Impact Insurance Facility has partnered with the Microinsurance Network and the Generation Foundation to address these challenges and bridge the protection gap. This includes generating evidence demonstrating the business case for targeting under-served market segments, while providing good value to policyholders. The project also seeks to build the capacity of insurers, foster innovation and illustrate the benefits of public-private partnerships to policymakers. Ultimately, the project goal is to ensure that emerging consumers have access to suitable insurance products and can effectively manage risk, thereby enhancing their overall well-being and resilience.

Activities

To achieve these goals, the project is focused on four key activities:

• Conducting stakeholder interviews with insurers.
• Analysing and reviewing the experience of successful inclusive insurance schemes.
• Conducting targeted client research using meta-analysis of impact literature.
• Producing and disseminating advocacy material to insurance industry players and public sector actors.