Tigo Tanzania, a brand of Swedish telecom provider Millicom, recently announced the launch of a “nano-lending product” named Tigo Nivushe.
Category: Microinsurance
MICROFINANCE EVENT: Microinsurance Business Models for Africa; April 6-7, 2016; Diani, Kenya
Event Name: Microinsurance Learning Sessions: Microinsurance Business Models for Africa
Event Dates: April 6-7, 2016
MICROFINANCE EVENT: Hanson Wade 7th Annual Latin American MicroInsurance Summit; March 14 – March 17, 2016; Miami, Florida, USA
Event Name: 7th Annual Latin American MicroInsurance Summit 2016
Event Dates: March 14-17, 2016
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: LeapFrog Investments Acquires Ghana’s UT Life Insurance
Leapfrog Investments, a Mauritius-based private equity fund that invests in companies that serve people in Africa and Asia who earn low incomes, recently acquired a majority stake in UT Life Insurance, a Ghana-based insurance company, for an undisclosed price.
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Prudential Financial to Invest $350m in African Insurers, To Be Managed by LeapFrog
Prudential Financial Incorporated, a US-based financial services company, recently announced an investment of USD 350 million in life insurance companies in African countries such as Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria.
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) Extends Microinsurance Compliance Deadline to March 31, 2016
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), the government agency charged with overseeing the country’s insurance market, recently announced that it has extended the deadline for insurance companies to withdraw non-compliant microinsurance products from their portfolios to March 31, 2016.
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: French Insurer AXA Ups Commitment to Microinsurance, Increasing Equity Stake in UK’s MicroEnsure to 46%
MicroEnsure, a UK-based, for-profit microinsurance company founded by US-based NGO Opportunity International, recently announced that AXA Group, a French insurance and asset management company, will pay an undisclosed sum to increase its equity stake in the organization to 46 percent from an unspecified level.
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Financial Sector Development Program (FSD) Africa to Invest $2m in Microinsurance Innovation Laboratory of International Labor Organization’s (ILO’s) Impact Insurance Facility
The Financial Sector Development Program (FSD) Africa, a project funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), will invest USD 1.8 million over the next four years in the “microinsurance innovation laboratory” to be developed by the Impact Insurance Facility (IIF) of the International Labor Organization (ILO), an agency of the United Nations.
MICROFINANCE PUBLICATION ROUND-UP: Mapping Pathways Out of Poverty; Marketing Insurance to Women; Sustaining Financial Inclusion in the Philippines
“Mapping Pathways out of Poverty: The State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report, 2015;” published by the Microcredit Summit Campaign; December 2015; available at: http://www.microfinancegateway.org/library/mapping-pathways-out-poverty-state-microcredit-summit-campaign-report-2015
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: International Labor Organization’s (ILO’s) Impact Insurance Facility, Africa Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re) Partner to Promote African Microinsurance
The Impact Insurance Facility (IIF) of the International Labor Organization (ILO), an agency of the United Nations, and Africa Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re), a Nigeria-based corporation that assists reinsurance institutions and invests in the African insurance sector, have agreed to partner to promote inclusive microinsurance markets for the financially excluded population in Africa[1].
SPECIAL REPORT: How Microinsurance Affected Mongolian Herders Rebuilding After Drought
At European Microfinance Week yesterday, Veronika Bertram-Hümmer of Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Berlin (the German Institute for Economic Research) and Leibniz Universitat Hannover presented research on how insured and uninsured herders in Mongolia recovered from the 2009-2010 drought that killed 22 percent of the livestock in the country. Insured households received an average payout of USD 312. None used the money to buy livestock, instead opting
MICROFINANCE EVENT: Microfinance Egypt Summit, March 23-24, 2016, Cairo, Egypt
Event Name: Microfinance Egypt Summit
Event Dates: March 23-24, 2016
Event Location: The Nile Ritz-Carlton Cairo, Egypt
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Commercial Bank of Ceylon, Ceylinco Insurance, Bima Launch Disability, Accident Microinsurance in Sri Lanka
Two firms based in Sri Lanka, Commercial Bank of Ceylon and Ceylinco Insurance, and Bima, a Sweden-based microinsurance service provider, recently launched an insurance program to protect microborrowers against permanent disability and accidental death.
MICROFINANCE EVENT: Munich Re Foundation, FMSAR, Microinsurance Network to Host 11th International Microinsurance Conference, November 3-5, 2015, Casablanca, Morocco
Event Name: 11th International Microinsurance Conference 2015: Driving Growth and Sustainability – A Business Case for Microinsurance
Event Date: November 3-5, 2015
Event Location: Hyatt Regency Hotel, Casablanca, Morocco
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda (IRA) to Reduce Minimum Capital Requirement for Microinsurers to $30k, Increase Client Protection Measures
The Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda (IRA) recently urged insurance companies in the country to work with microfinance institutions (MFIs) to develop and promote microinsurance products.
SPECIAL REPORT: ACRE Africa, Bima, Microfact, Tech-Innov, UTM, Others Report on New Products for Rural Areas at Semaine Africaine de la Microfinance (SAM) in Dakar, Senegal
As Semaine Africaine de la Microfinance (SAM) began to draw to a close, a range of service providers described their new products and services at an all-day Innovation Fair.
Solenn Marquette of Bima, a Sweden-based insurer operating in 13 developing countries, explained her firm’s strategy for using mobile phones to sell insurance. Although building branches is too expensive, “we still put education teams on ground” to market products. One such product is Tigo Hospitalization, which is offered in Senegal starting at CFA 200 (USD 0.40) per month for up to CFA 30,000 (USD 50) in coverage.
SPECIAL REPORT: How Holistic Approaches Can Advance Rural Enterprise Through Microinsurance, Technology, Market Research
At the start of the second day of conference sessions at Semaine Africaine de la Microfinance (SAM), Renée Chao-Beroff of the Participatory Microfinance Group for Africa (PAMIGA), a France-based network of 14 African microfinance institutions, argued, “Microfinance has to be with something else to have effect. Standalone financial services are no longer working. We have to question our practices and go to a more holistic approach.” As an example, Mark Rueegg of Swiss microinsurer CelsiusPro explained how his firm distributes some of the satellite data it collects for actuarial purposes directly to farmers via mobile phones. “These data can give optimal planting dates instead of farmers going by what they were taught by their father, their neighbor…. This can allow them to increase their yield dramatically without extra costs, such as for additional fertilizer.”
MICROFINANCE PAPER WRAP-UP: “Is Health Microinsurance Sustainable? An Analysis of Five South Asian Schemes,” by Michael E. Weilant, published by the International Labour Organization
“Is Health Microinsurance Sustainable? An analysis of Five South Asian Schemes,” by Michael Weilant, published by the International Labor Organization, May 2015, 45 pages, available at: http://www.impactinsurance.org/sites/default/files/mp41_final.pdf
This paper analyzes five health microinsurance (HMI) schemes operating in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan in order to evaluate the sustainability of HMI. All five schemes were in operation for more than 3 years and serve more than 25,000 active customers.