“Microinsurance is a critical tool to help poor people manage risks efficiently. The increasing interest for base-of-the-pyramid insurance is fueling the rapid development of innovative products and delivery mechanisms that combine sustainability and value to clients. This volume comes at the right time to pull together key lessons so far and distill the latest innovations from an impressive roster of market leaders.”
Tilman Ehrbeck, CEO, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)

“This volume reinforces our experience that microinsurance works well when it stands on four strong pillars. First, the product has to deliver tangible value to the bottom of the pyramid at an affordable price point. Second, the business has to make commercial sense to ensure long-term sustainability. Third, the programme has to be aligned with the national policies on social protection and financial inclusion. A good working relationship and shared understanding between the government and the insurance company is a great enabler. Last but not least, microinsurance must leverage technology to enhance outreach, lower distribution costs, simplify processes and improve the quality and consistency of delivery."
Bhargav Dasgupta, CEO, ICICI Lombard

"This insightful compendium makes a critical contribution to advancing financial inclusion and the impact of microinsurance around the globe, furthering the understanding and discussions among regulators, supervisors and key stakeholders in improving inclusive insurance markets."
Yoshi Kawai, Secretary General, International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS)

Protecting the Poor: A microinsurance compendium, vol. II, is a unique collection of recent practices and emerging ideas in microinsurance. It covers the numerous innovations that have emerged in recent years to meet the challenges of providing insurance to low-income people, from new products and delivery channels to consumer education tools, while examining institutional changes in regulations, providers and schemes.

As the microinsurance community dramatically evolves and millions more low-income households have access to better insurance cover, this timely second volume will be an invaluable resource for policy-makers, insurers, academics and NGOs.

ILO and Munich Re Foundation, Publishers

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Table of acronyms

Introduction

Part I: Emerging issues

1. Current trends in microinsurance

2. The potential of microinsurance for social protection

3. What is the impact of microinsurance?

4. Microinsurance and climate change

Part II: Health insurance

5. Innovations and barriers in health microinsurance

6. Third-party payment mechanisms in health microinsurance

7. The elusive quest for estimates of willingness to pay for health microinsurance

Part III: Life insurance

8. Savings in microinsurance: Lessons from India

9. Improving credit life microinsurance

10. Funeral insurance

Part IV: General insurance

11. Designed for development impact: Next-generation index insurance for smallholder farmers

12. Livestock insurance: Helping vulnerable livestock keepers manage their risk

Part V: Insurance and the low-income market

13. The psychology of microinsurance: Small changes can make a surprising difference

14. Emerging practices in consumer education on risk management

and insurance

15. Improving client value: Insights from India, Kenya, and the Philippines

16. Microinsurance that works for women

17. Formalizing the informal insurance inherent in migration: Exploring potential links between migration, remittances and microinsurance

Part VI: Insurers and microinsurance

18. Is microinsurance a profitable business for insurance companies?

19. Teaching elephants to dance: The experiences of commercial insurers

in low-income markets

20. State and market synergies: Insights from India’s microinsurance success

21. Pricing of microinsurance products

Part VII: Delivery channels and intermediaries

22. New frontiers in microinsurance distribution

23. Microinsurance intermediaries

Part VIII: Infrastructure and environment for microinsurance

24. The technology revolution in microinsurance

25. Access to insurance and financial-sector regulation

26. Protecting consumers while promoting microinsurance

Appendix

About the authors

Bibliography

Index

List of tables

List of figures

List of boxes