Microinsurance news

International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, is developing an index-based insurance product to protect banks in Indonesia that provide loans to individuals and micro, small and medium enterprises from losses following earthquakes and other disasters.

The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) is broadening its reach with its first venture into personal insurance products and is supporting trials of a parametric personal weather insurance product designed to pay out to Caribbean residents after a natural disaster strikes.

A new pilot scheme offering flood insurance to residents of a region of Bangladesh using a parametric product based on flood depths has been launched by a group of organisations including Oxfam and Swiss Re. The product aims to use alternative risk transfer techniques to protect poor residents of river basin areas of the country.

The global penetration of microinsurance cover is set to double from the 500m people currently covered to more than 1 billion by 2020, according to a statement from the Microinsurance Network. Governments, insurers and reinsurers are all expected to broaden he geographic scope and range of products as they seek to make insurance products available […]

The Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organisation (MiCRO), a specialty reinsurance organisation established to provide the backing for microinsurance products through microfinance institutions in Haiti, has received $1.96m in funding from the IFC (International Finance Corporation), a member of the World Bank Group. The award includes a $1.7 million performance-based grant and $260,000 in technical assistance from […]

Here’s another example of the successful application of parametric weather-index based insurance techniques in developing economies. Insurer Jubilee Insurance recently made payouts under their weather index insurance scheme to over 200 cotton farmers in Baringo County, Kenya for their losses suffered after crops failed due to a lack of measured rainfall.

Hurricane Sandy will likely cause the largest payout to date for the Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organisation (MiCRO) in Haiti. The impact of Sandy on Haiti was severe, with around 54 deaths, 18,000+ people displaced and the micro-lending firm Fonkoze suggesting that as many as 12,000 of their customers may be eligible for a payout under […]

The increasing adoption of weather index insurance or parametric insurance in the developing world continues as another pilot scheme gets approval in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Insurer HDFC ERGO General Insurance has received approval from the Maharashtra government to implement a pilot microinsurance project aimed at both farmers who have taken loans from a […]

Thailand’s Kasikornbank, one of the largest commercial banks in the country, is introducing a range of parametric and weather index based insurance products for their mortgage customers. After the catastrophic flooding in Thailand last year there has been a renewed focus on providing affordable, simple insurance products to home and business owners, in order to […]

A weather index based microinsurance scheme which has been active in Kenya for more than two years is now expanding its reach to include Rwanda as well. The scheme which offers farmers a way to protect their crops against weather extremes through the use of insurance products with parametric index type triggers is operated by […]