Friday, October 28, 2016

We're back! What we read at the MIC this week!

Government to Person Transfers: On-ramp to Financial Inclusion? 

  • In this study, Guy Stuart, CFI Fellow and Executive Director of Microfinance Opportunities, set out to explore G2P transfers as an on-ramp to use of formal financial services and ultimately increased financial inclusion. Read the full report to learn more, but basically he found that G2P programs were not achieving this - though there exist missed opportunities. For example, the relationships with financial service providers were not maximized; a space where microinsurance could potentially fit in. See Stuart's recommendations for governments towards the end of the paper.  

Over 40 million mobile insurance clients today in region

  • The Microinsurance Network and the Munich Re Foundation carried out a landscape study on mobile insurance in Asia. MNOs are becoming an increasingly popular distribution channel for microinsurance products not only in Asia, but in other regions such as Africa. The results of this study will be presented at the 12th International Microinsurance Conference coming up November 15 - 17 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.   

The uberization of insurance

  • Robin Smith, CEO of WeGoLook, offers her perspectives on where she believes the insurance industry is headed. She comments on the "gig economy", mobile technology, data gathering, and more in this short but enjoyable post from Insurance Thought Leadership.

Big data for small policies

  • What does big data mean for the microinsurance space? There is great potential but many challenges in obtaining data on low-income populations. Mobile datasets can be an answer, but do they provide an accurate picture and are they easily accessible?