The development of sustainable index-insurance markets requires enabling legal and regulatory environments The adoption of the “CIMA Book VII” on April 5th 2012 was a major milestone allowing and regulating the development ofmicroinsurance and index-insurance for 15 countries in the Inter-African Conference on the Insurance Market or CIMA region In addition to this regional regulatory change, the Global Index-insurance Facility (GIIF) has supported national insurance supervision agencies with this transition. In particular, GIIF has assisted the Senegalese Insurance Supervision Agency with the

While access to credit is a key instrument toalleviate rural poverty, microfinance institutions(MFIs) are often unable to expand their agriculturelending portfolio. One of the key constraints thatMFIs face is the exposure of agriculture lending toshocks such as drought, flood, or locust which can putfarmers in a situation where they are unable to repaytheir loans. Major agriculture shocks can indeed leadto loan defaults and bank runs therefore resultingin destruction of risk capital, reduced access toliquidity, decreased lending and sometimes insolvency.Evidence shows that credit supply

For eight years, Chandrasiri Vanasunder, a small holderfamerin the Ratnapura district of Sri Lanka, bore the lossescaused by drought and excess-rainfall on his 2-acre teaestate. But all that begun tochange in 2012, when a salesrepresentative from Sanasa told him about ‘index-basedinsurance’ for tea plants. “As soon as I heard about theproduct, I knew that this was a good product. I have sufferedsevere losses in the past, and this seemed like a smart ideato help me prepare for future uncertainty.” Vanasunder’sjudgment proved right, as approximately half -way throughthe last season, he received

Full Publication In various forms microinsurance has been available to some low-income people in Africa for a number of years. Cooperative Insurers have serviced a market that spans the income ranges since the 1970s. In the 1980s, community-based health insurance schemes, especially in West Africa, followed the Bamako Initiative. In the mid-1990s, commercial insurers began to enter the market offering specialized microinsurance products. Informal microinsurance has been available for decades in a range of forms, from “tontines” in West Africa or “friend in need” groups in East Africa to burial

Full Publication Microinsurance is a unique topic for a Lloyd’s 360 Risk Insight report. Usually, we advise businesses on managing emerging risks but this report focuses more on opportunity than emerging risk. Produced by Lloyd’s and the MicroInsurance Centre, this report sets out the understanding, mechanisms and partnerships needed to deliver insurance to three billion low income individuals across the globe, and how this will bring benefits to both the developing world and the insurance industry. Microinsurance is not charity, it is business, but it will require insurers to change their

Microinsurance pioneers and practitioners frequently underline their social focus but are often unable to support these intentions with figures and adapted reports. The social performance indicators presented in this handbook allow practitioners to go beyond good intentions by monitoring and documenting their social performance and improving their operations accordingly. This handbook describes a framework, which includes a set of principles, guidelines and key performance indicators, that is designed to support microinsurance practitioners to monitor, improve and champion social performance

Microinsurance is regarded by some as a risk management mechanism that the poor can use to compensate for the lack of appropriate state-sponsored social protection programmes. Alternatively, it is viewed by others as an opportunity to provide financial services to the low-income market at a profit. Regardless of where the emphasis is placed, all microinsurance programmes should aim to become viable since donor or government subsidies are either only temporary or not available. Without subsidies, all programmes are subject to the same economic and market forces as mainstream businesses, and