microfinance

French NGO PlaNet Guarantee have teamed up with the International Finance Corporation insurance facility the Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF) to launch what they are calling the first regional management platform for microinsurance and index insurance in West Africa.

Bloomberg reports that Holcim, the second largest cement producer in the world, is going to offer catastrophe microinsurance to customers in developing countries and emerging markets as an additional sales tool giving them a way to mitigate some of the risks of constructing homes in catastrophe prone countries.

A number of high profile organisations within the risk transfer and reinsurance industries have teamed up to help bring affordable catastrophe insurance to the Caribbean island of Haiti. The innovative, donor-capitalised insurance facility called the Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organisation (MiCRO), has been set up to target the country’s ‘informal sector’ – the organized poor who […]

Nigeria are the latest country we’ve heard of which has a desire to establish a scheme to help its farmers protect their livelihoods from the vagaries of the weather and changing climate patterns. Only 1% of farmers in Nigeria have access to insurance cover, this despite the fact that 90% of Nigeria’s agriculture is said […]

Guy Carpenter has announced that they have received a $1m grant from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to help develop a market for weather index-based microinsurance products in Mozambique. The initiative will aim to provide cheap, affordable insurance cover for farmers in a country where the population depends on agriculture for economic subsistence.

It seems that microinsurance, at least in some areas of the world, is now prevalent enough and that after a disaster strikes insurers are seeing large increases in applications for microinsurance policies to protect locals from any future events. This suggests that the marketing efforts which have been ongoing in this sector are beginning to […]

We’ve been following the development of the microinsurance market for weather index insurance with great interest at Artemis. As a product it seems perfect for developing nations as it is easily understood and gives predictable payouts based on actual weather conditions. Weather index insurance has received the backing of organisations such as the World Bank […]

Egypt is just emerging from a two week period of unrest and revolution. It’s still unclear which direction the country will head in now that its government has been torn apart and replaced by the heads of the army but it does look like a new form of Middle Eastern democracy could emerge and insurers […]

Seeking to regulate the growing microinsurance markets is a growing trend in the developing world. After the initial pilot schemes, run by NGO’s and governmental organisations have ended countries are finding they are often left with a system which has not got proper regulation in place.

Guy Carpenter have published a report looking at the devastating floods which have affected China this year. It was one of the worst flooding seasons since 1998 for China yet despite huge economic losses, insured losses will be low due to the extremely low penetration of insurance in China.