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Housed at the International Labour Organization's Social Finance Programme, the Microinsurance Innovation Facility seeks to increase the availability of quality insurance for the developing world’s low-income families to help them guard against risk and overcome poverty. The Facility was launched in 2008 with the support of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Facility's activities
The Facility provides grants to support organisations to develop innovations in the microinsurance sector. See our Innovation grants section for more information. Click also on the Innovation grantees to get an overview of the projects grantees are implementing, and how these are intended to benefit the working poor. The
CCB Programme offers a range of customized services to support microinsurance consultants and providers to deliver value to the poor. See also our CCB projects.
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Knowledge update
Bite Sized Lessons
It's not that I don't understand you, I don't trust you
Limited trust, not lack of education or product knowledge, appears as the key barrier to take-up of health insurance in a randomized field experiment indicating priorities for insurers, regulators and donors interested in increasing product take-up. Researchers found no impact of the financial literacy training on take-up. This was puzzling because the attendance rate was high and a post-quiz showed that the participants increased knowledge from the course. The absence of effects from the education, despite high compliance and apparent learning after the training, suggest that limited education is not the main barrier to insurance participation. Researchers believe that lack of trust may be a greater barrier to take-up, as was suggested by results from a related experiment measuring members' trust in the insurer.
Publication
Is it all about money? A randomized evaluation of the impact of insurance literacy and marketing treatments on the demand for health microinsurance in Senegal - (pdf 1,56 MB)
Jacopo Bonan, Olivier Dagnelie, Philippe LeMay-Boucher and Michel Tenikue, Research paper n°14
In Senegal mutual health organizations (MHOs) have been present in the greater region of Thies for years. Despite their efforts and the benefits they bring to low-income population, in some areas, take up rates remain low. The authors of this paper ran an insurance literacy module, communicating the benefits of health microinsurance and explaining MHOs work, to a randomly selected sample of households in the city of Thies. The effects of the training, and three vouchers offering refunds and additional education were evaluated using a randomized control trial. The authors find that the insurance literacy module had no impact on the demand for health microinsurance, but that their marketing intervention had a significant effect on the take up decisions of households.
Webinar
Webinar on "Insights from India's microinsurance success"
India is the global leader in microinsurance. Innovation is blooming and new products are being explored. More than 300 million low-income risks are insured. Indeed, more than 60% of insurance is to be found in India! What are the catalysts for the success of microinsurance in India? What role does the government play in the exponential development of the sector? How does India´s experience compare with other countries and what can others learn from it? Join us as we explore these questions in a webinar that focuses on one of the chapters in the newly-launched Microinsurance Compendium volume II. The webinar, scheduled on 31 May, 2:00-3:15pm will feature in the panel Michal Matul, co-editor of the new volume; Rupalee Ruschismita, author of the chapter in focus, and Samrat Nandy, VP for Client Markets of Swiss Re Services India. Click here to register and be guaranteed a seat in this online event.
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What's new
Microinsurance Fellows contribute to microinsurance provision in the Pacific
Our Fellows based in the Pacific have contributed to help National Insurance Timor-Leste (NITL) and its partners Tuba Rei Metin and Moris Rasik, the two microfinance institutions currently operating in Timor-Leste, to introduce the first ever regulated microinsurance products in the country. Through this partnership, NITL expects to provide protection to nearly 6% of the economically active population by the end of 2012. The first products developed, 'Credit Life Plus' and 'Asuransi Protesaun ba Familia', are mandatory as they are tied to the disbursement of new loans and provide coverage for the women and their spouses. Product benefits have been tailored to meet the peculiar needs of the borrowers in each organization and pay-outs may be linked to the size of the loan. At a minimum, however, if a borrower dies, her outstanding loan balance will be cancelled and her family will receive $500. In the case of the borrower's spouse dying, his family will receive, at a minimum, $250.
Insurance education tool kit
CNseg has released a comprehensive tool kit that walks you through the methodology that was deployed to set up and implement its insurance education project Estou Seguro. It highlights the main lessons learned from the project and shares tools to monitor and evaluate your campaign as well as educational material such as videos, comic books and radio scripts.Read the Annual Report on your tablet
An enhanced version of the Annual Report including videos (English version only) is now available as an E-book. You can download the file with Itunes and read it on a IOS device (Ipad, Iphone, Itouch). Let us know your comments at microinsurancemedia@ilo.org as we're eager to know if you enjoyed that format.
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Feature story
Using insurance to drive trade
Microinsurance is one development tool that can aid poor entrepreneurs in the informal economy to manage risks, reduce vulnerability and sustain productivity.
However, there are challenges both on the demand and supply sides that must be tackled by innovative insurers and their delivery partners if they are to serve
the market effectively.
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