Microinsurance Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1. RBAP SESSION:
Learnings
from the
7th Microinsurance
International
Conference
November 8-10, 2011
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2. Discussion Framework
Partnerships
RBAP-RBRDFI
Microinsurance
Initiative
Innovation
and Distribution
Technology

3. MI in Latin America and the
Caribbean
o Insurance regulations are not tailored to the unique characteristics of MI
o Common products: funeral, credit-life, disability (life and health less
available)
o Financing mostly comes from the private sector. Premiums and insured
value is rarely subsidized by the government
MI Industry is INNOVATIVE
• POS – shoppers can buy life insurance
• Remittance – based – emigrants can buy policies that when death
happens while they are abroad, it covers the cost to transport their bodies
home
• Catastrophic – policies against natural disasters in Haiti (parametric model)
• Brokers/Intermediaries – improvement of variety and quality of insurance
products and to expand the channels

4. Other Innovations: LA and the
Caribbean
- cancer-indemnity for low-income women
- accident insurance for agri, cattle and fishery workers
- life insurance drawn when eligible for micropensions
- hospitalization coverage
- indexed agricultural insurance that may be linked to yield or to climate-
related losses

5. Low Takeup
Why are people uninsured?
• Insufficient fund to buy insurance
• Lacks understanding of insurance
Problems in the MI Market
• low takeup is common
• high distribution costs that raise issue on equity
To boost penetration…
• subsidies
• mandatory requirements
• reliance on private sector provision
• right balance between public and private

6. MI in Brazil
• MI Resolution: focused on product regulation, prudential regulation,
market conduct regulation
• Lessons:
• utility, telecommunications and retailer distribution
• product development: use of client data to design appropriate product
offering
• sales: layered commission structures and the use of non-monetary
incentives
• premium collection: existing bill-collection infrastructure, flexible
premium collection
• servicing: use of electronic in-store help terminals, one-stop service
desks
• claims process: simplified, outsourced, in-store claims submission

7. Technology in MI
Challenges in MI:
- Accessibility
- Channel
- Enrollment
- Billing
- Relationship
Technologies in MI to help address: SCALE and EFFICIENCY
- Cell phones - accessibility, channel, enrollment, billing, relationship
- PoS - accessibility, channel, enrollment, billing
- Barcodes, billing
- Social Network - relationship
- Internet - accessibility, channel, enrollment, billing, relationship

8. Technology plays a fundamental role to:
- increase operations scale
- increase operations efficiency
- create a communication channel to increase the relationship and education
- reduce costs
Technology for MI:
- The need of rural customers is low-value, low-margin, high volume
business, and calls for solutions that are highly decentralized, flexible and
cost-effective
- Challenge for insurers is to bring down cost of servicing customers and
distributors
- Ghana: enrolment and premium payment thru mobile phone
- Philippines: simplified claims system
- Tanzania: enrolment thru handhelds (ipods) to capture data and biometrics

9. Why mobile insurance?: the
case of Ghana
•Customer access: poor have mobile phones
•Financial transactions: faster, cheaper, easier, safer
•Information transfer: efficient marketing, enrolment, administration
•Consumer Trust: reputation, familiarity of telecoms vs. insurers
•***Tigo - coverage based on monthly airtime usage
Requirements:
- must enhance the channel's core business
- reliance on the channel's brand
- product, process, technology must be simple
- premium collection requires creativity
- incentives must be aligned
- tech should serve the product
- capital must be patient

10. Managing Microinsurance
Partnerships
The Partnership Lifecycle: Search
Assessment
Evaluation
and Selection
Maintenance Incentives
Pre-
Implementati
agreement
on
process

11. What have we been doing
right?
• Consistent communication with regulatory bodies governing MI in the
Philippines
• Formulation of the MI National Regulatory Framework that sets the
parameters in product development and distribution
• Active involvement of private insurance providers as risk-carriers under
the Principal-Agent Model
•Building the capacity of community-based institutions like the rural
banks as distribution channels for MI
• Insurance education integrated to the Basic MI Training to raise
awareness and appreciation of insurance products

12. What have we been missing?
• Adoption of innovative technology in enhancing distribution and
expanding MI outreach
• Still to tap the popular usage of mobile technology in addressing
challenges in accessibility, premium collection, claims payment,
reporting and feedback
• Response of RBs in the licensing procedure
• About 52 rural banks are in the different stages of the licensing
process
• Lack of deposit-linked MI product

13. What needs to be done?
• Promotion of mobile phone technology usage to rural banks and their
insurance partners. If possible, pilot bank for the mobile technology be given
financial aid by RBAP through the ILO innovation grant
• Usage of SMS, social networking, internet in the promotion of RBAP MI
Initiative on insurance education and soon, financial literacy to target clients
• Use of the innovations mentioned above on close follow-up and monitoring of
RBs in their licensing process
•Encourage both insurers and RBs to tap the large number of microdeposit
clients in the bank
Opportunities:
• development of agricultural-based MI product
• retail-like MI product that may be marketed to accredited RB bayad centers

14. SALAMAT!