Publication database

The emergence of health microinsurance (HMI) programmes worldwide provides hope that the poor will receive, at a minimum, a reliable, adequate level of access to affordable healthcare. Led by the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill and the ILO's Microinsurance Innovation Facility, Briefing Note #5, which is based on a longer thematic study that includes a literature review of 68 documents covering the period from 1999 to 2010 and expert interviews with more than 31 experts representing 25 organizations, focuses on private sector HMI and discusses the challenges that limit the growth and impact of HMI. In addition to identifying barriers to success, the authors present innovations that may move the field forward, including collaboration with public programmes.

Consumer education can be one important component of microinsurance schemes; it benefits microinsurance practitioners by stimulating demand and helps low-income households make informed decisions. Led by ILO's Microinsurance Innovation Facility, Briefing Note #3 summarizes feedback collected by the Microinsurance Network's Insurance Education Working Group from more than fifty practitioners who were early implementers of consumer education schemes. The authors highlight key design features for content and delivery of education and provide examples of organizations that have successfully implemented the features in consumer education programmes. In the last section, they review the challenges of sustainability and monitoring and evaluation that are especially relevant for practitioners who want to integrate education into their business models.

One important lesson from behavioural economics is the understanding that small changes in the design of products and marketing can sometimes make a surprising difference in how and whether financial products are used. Led by the Financial Access Initiative, Microinsurance Paper #5 presents laboratory and field research examples from the field of behavioural economics to provide eight recommendations for microinsurance providers. The authors describe new insights into how households think about losses and gains, weigh present and future trade-offs, struggle with self-control, and are influenced by the way choices are framed. These insights can help insurers navigate how to improve product design, marketing, insurance education, pricing, and take-up.

One important lesson from behavioural economics is the understanding that small changes in the design of products and marketing can sometimes make a surprising difference in how and whether financial products are used. Led by the Financial Access Initiative, Briefing Note #4 presents laboratory and field research examples from the field of behavioural economics to provide eight recommendations for microinsurance providers. The authors describe new insights into how households think about losses and gains, weigh present and future trade-offs, struggle with self-control, and are influenced by the way choices are framed. These insights can help insurers navigate how to improve product design, marketing, insurance education, pricing, and take-up.

In 2009, the Microinsurance Innovation Facility published, in its Briefing Notes series, the results of a study that revealed the current landscape of microinsurance in Africa. The study, conducted in partnership with the MicroInsurance Centre, identified over 14 million low-income people in Africa who were covered by microinsurance at the end of 2008, almost double where this figure stood in 2004. Even with such growth, substantial parts of the continent remain almost barren of microinsurance. Microinsurance Paper #4 is an expanded version of those briefing notes, presenting more detailed results of the study and setting them in context. Market opportunity and demand are covered in depth, along with the African regulatory environment and other important enabling factors. The current outreach of microinsurance in Africa, including insurers, products, and delivery channels, is then presented from a practice-based perspective, with case studies and input from expert practitioners. The paper concludes with a discussion of challenges that must be overcome in order to facilitate broader, high-quality expansion in the years to come.