L’Union des Assurances du Burkina Vie plans to roll out its existing savings plus life insurance product, customized for informal sector entrepreneurs, on a large scale with the use of new technologies. The project tackles key challenges – including premium collection security, high costs of daily collections and fraud – by equipping clients with smart cards and market collectors with terminals. Technology should improve the administration of the product and help UAB to expand its operations.
The project brings together a consortium of partners to roll out, through member-based organizations and MFIs, composite insurance products for the low-income population in Kenya. A consortium, (SCC, Cooperative Insurance Company (CIC), Folksam Mutual Insurance Company and National Health Insurance Fund(NHIF)) will address three key problems:
Lack of capacity for microinsurance providers,
Inappropriate products for the low-income people and
Inappropriate infrastructure for delivery of microinsurance.
The project will exploit the synergetic effect of a partnership between the NHIF and CIC and will test a variety of innovative delivery channels (SACCOs, MFIs, artisans associations, youth associations, welfare and faith-based groups).
Hollard, a family-owned insurer, wants to learn how to deliver quality and affordable voluntary products to the poor. The project focuses on short-term insurance such as home and asset coverage, which is virtually unavailable to the low-income households in developing countries. The insurer will explore the use of innovative delivery channels, including retailers and cell phone airtime vendors, to reach the low-income market.
ICICI Prudential started its operations in 2000 and is the largest private life insurance company in India with one of the largest distribution networks with more than 2000 branches nation wide and good connexion with MFIs. Based on a solid microinsurance experience, ICICI Prudential seeks to pilot a term life insurance with a savings component delivered to large employee groups. The initial target group for the project will be tribal tea plantation workers. Technology is included to reduce transaction costs and improve customer service and general efficiency.
The Centre for Insurance and Risk Management (CIRM) is a not for profit, academic organization engaged in a variety of action research initiatives with insurers, NGOs and regulators to design and promote innovative insurance products and to improve knowledge on risk-mitigating mechanisms. In this project, CIRM plans to develop a spatial mapping of best practices of microinsurance products in India.
In partnership with the SANASA Insurance Company, Ltd. (SICL) and BASIX, DID will conduct a feasibility study in Sri Lanka to consider the demand, viability and product design, particularly for weather index insurance. Through a combination of technical assistance from BASIX (India) and DID (Canada), the Sri Lankan insurer will then seek to replicate and improve on BASIX’s successful experiences with rural insurance services.
This project will launch a funeral insurance product on a mass scale in cooperation with a large retail bank (BNC) and a network of funeral homes. It builds on a successful microinsurance project in 2007 with the MFI Fonkoze and on a comprehensive market research, which provided evidence that funeral costs are one of the most important risks faced by low-income households in Haiti.
In partnership with the rural water associations, La Positiva plans to analyze farmers’ risk management needs, sensitize distributors and consumers about the importance of insurance, and take advantage of the irrigation delivery system to distribute products. The originality of this project lies in the association between a commercial insurer and a grassroots organization that works closely with rural communities and is trusted by the farmers.
Through a strategic alliance with rural organizations and private sector insurance companies, AMUCSS plans to develop an institutional model to distribute microinsurance to marginalized rural areas. The project has several components, including the formation of a microinsurance delivery network, the development of tailored products, education for consumers and operators, and applied research. AMUCSS proposes to partner with more than 65 organizations, some of them from the private or academic sector, others from grass roots organizations.
