Microinsurance

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 […]

There has always been a need for the public and private sectors to come together to provide effective disaster and catastrophe risk transfer solutions. The private sector alone, in the form of insurance and reinsurance, cannot provide the capacity to cover all of the risk or effectively help the poorest of people especially in developing […]

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.

Ghana looks likely to be another country who will adopt the usage of index-based weather insurance as a way to help their farmers cope with the vagaries and extremes of weather faced by the west African nation. The country is seeking to boost its food security and with the help of the World Bank, who […]

The Financial Times carries an article written by Robert Zoellick, the current President of the World Bank which looks at soaring world food prices and the impact on poorer, developing nations. The article titled Free markets can still feed the world details some ‘practical and interconnected’ steps that Zoellick says can help the G20 nations […]

An interagency committee in the Philippines has approved a set of draft standards for how microinsurance products should be marketed and sold as well as a draft for a standardised product structure. The draft now has to be passed on to their Insurance Commission for approval which could happen by the end of this month.

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.

Swiss Re have published their latest Sigma study on the subject of the microinsurance market and its potential to provide insurance cover for up to 4 billion people around the world. The microinsurance market is growing but still remains an area of huge potential growth as it currently focuses on few classes of risk and […]

The agreements signed at the recent Cancun United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change summit show that insurance and climate risk transfer were high on the agenda at the conference. Many representatives from the re/insurance and risk modelling world were present and promoting the various methods that could be used to create a re/insurance facility.