Publication database

"Protecting the Poor: A microinsurance compendium, volume 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. 
Offering a synthesis of new trends and practices in the growing market of microinsurance, this volume will be an invaluable resource for policy-makers and practitioners alike.

Two important challenges in establishing and sustaining community-based insurance (CBI) schemes are low rates of community member enrolment and high lapse rates. These factors lead to low CBI coverage which in turn results in low levels of revenue for the risk carrier and limited risk-pooling, which leave CBI schemes financially and organizationally vulnerable to unexpected changes in incomes or high disease incidence. In Research Paper #15, an experimental design is used to examine how the relationship between insurance providers and health care facilities - and more specifically payment mechanisms for services delivered by health workers - can influence uptake and renewals. The research discovers that the way health care workers are remunerated by the risk carrier can crucially determine CBI performance and quality of health services as payment mechanisms also influence the way healthcare is delivered. Based on the results from this experiment, a revised CBI payment system based on health workers preferences was introduced in the Nouna district of Burkina Faso in January 2011.

This checklist outlines the elements that companies need to take into account if they are considering an inclusive business project. The first section covers the elements to think about before getting started: “How ready are you?”. The second covers the inclusive business project itself: “How robust is your model?”.

Research Paper #13 analyses the willingness to pay of Côte d'Ivoire cocoa farmers for very affordable insurance and in which extent risk aversion determines demand. The methodology employed is an experimental gambling approach with real pay-offs and a contingent valuation method to measure the farmers willingness to pay for the insurance. The findings reveal a relatively high level of risk aversion among Ivorian cocoa farmers with more than 45 percent of the households exhibiting severe to extreme risk aversion. Considerable interest in minimum price insurance has been found with 66 percent of farmers responding positively to the interest question. It appears that farmers' demand for insurance is affected by a range of independent variables like household size, farming experience, monetary value of livestock, share of cocoa in total income, age of cocoa farm, farm size and social network as coping mechanism. More importantly, the study discovers a highly significant effect of risk aversion on farmers' insurance take-up decisions. In particular, high risk aversion was unexpectedly found to inhibit the demand for insurance. Finally, the analysis reveals that the actual premium farmers would actually be willing to pay to be covered is relatively low in spite of a large percentage of farmers stating their interest in the product.