Background

Small businesses are vital to economic development and account for two thirds of all jobs and a majority of new jobs worldwide. They are particularly important in emerging markets, which have around 80-95 per cent of the world´s micro, small and medium enterprises.

Small businesses face a wide range of risks, ranging from theft of assets to illness of a key worker to natural disasters, and they struggle more than larger businesses to cope with these risks.

Insurance represents an important tool to help businesses better manage risks. It provides them with financial protection for many risks, while also helping to boost productivity and increasing access to finance. Still, small businesses tend to be underinsured or have no insurance at all. In emerging economies, only a very small percentage of small businesses have ever bought any insurance policy.

Insurance for small businesses represents a promising market for insurers. Nonetheless, it poses significant challenges, such as unsuitable products, poor distribution and limited demand and understanding among small businesses.

Purpose

This partnership is a continuation of previous collaborations between GIZ and the ILO and further develops the Impact Insurance Facility’s capacity-building strategy. The idea is to build the capacity of ILO’s partner institutes and their local trainers to offer trainings that are relevant for insurers willing to expand their portfolio of products targeting small and medium enterprises. This includes the training on “Insurance for small and medium enterprises” jointly developed by the ILO and GIZ in 2019, but also on other topics such as market research, distribution, client value, responsible insurance and claims.

Activities

Under this partnership, the following activities will be carried out:

• Setting up a new partnership with a local training institute to offer inclusive insurance trainings in Egypt;
• Organizing a number of trainings of trainers and trainings to the market in topics related to insurance for SMEs in Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Nigeria and the Philippines.
• Researching and documenting a number of recent case studies of insurers who were successful in designing and offering good value products to SMEs; and
• Contributing to a working group and research piece on insurance for SMEs.