Microinsurance

Aon Benfield have published their Monthly Cat Recap Report for September which is put together by their Impact Forecasting catastrophe modelling and analysis arm. The report takes a look at the major natural catastrophe and weather events around the globe during the last month and puts economic loss figures on the resulting damage.

Reinsurer Swiss Re and it’s member colleagues of the Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organisation (MiCRO) are to develop a parametric microinsurance policy aimed at women entrepreneurs in Haiti. The scheme will offer a way to enable Haitian women struck by cholera with a rapid insurance payment for income lost by their businesses due to their illness. […]

The parties behind the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative microinsurance scheme have committed to expanding the reach of their weather-index insurance products outside of the original pilot country Ethiopia. The initiative involves the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and Oxfam America, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Swiss Re provide the […]

Fonkoze, a lender of micro-loans to small businessmen and farmers in Haiti, have now paid out over $1m in damages to its 3,800 borrowers after heavy rainfall triggered the Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organization (MiCRO) policies that they provide along with their loans, according to Microfinance Focus.

Some farmers in a drought stricken region of Kenya have received payments under the terms of a weather-index based microinsurance policy established this year. Wheat farmers in Narok County in southwest Kenya have received payments for a total crop failure due to drought in April.

Business News Americas report here that a Swiss Re representative has declared that they will seek to replicate the Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organisation (MiCRO) to provide cover across several Caribbean and Latin American countries in the coming months.

Here’s another great example of microinsurance in action through the use of index-based weather insurance policies for farmers in developing nations. Farmers in Kibwezi, Kenya have become the first to receive a payout from a recently launched drought insurance product sold by Jubilee Insurance.

The Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organisation (MiCRO) facility, which was launched in April by a high-profile partnership of companies, is reported (by Microfinance Focus) to have been triggered in Haiti during recent heavy rain and flooding in Haiti. The facility provides a microinsurance product which utilises a parametric trigger to settle claims after specific catastrophes including […]

International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and Swiss Re Corporate Solutions are to join forces to develop new and innovative index-based insurance products to help ease the impact of weather and natural disasters in developing countries. The products will be particularly targeted at farmers and the agricultural communities in Africa […]

Swiss Re have announced that they are to partner with Oxfam America and the World Food Programme as a founding sponsor and provider of re/insurance to the R4 initiative. The initiative aims to help poor rural communities protect their crops and livelihoods from the risks of climate change.