As the annual meeting of the Microinsurance Network came to a close in Königstein yesterday, the experts present agreed that knowledge exchange and advocacy is more important than ever to promote effective insurance and lead to more informed action, given the momentum provided by global discussions on resilience, risk mitigation and financial inclusion.
The role of the Network in bringing together sector players to foster knowledge sharing and collective action was identified as crucial for the sector to achieve scale in an effective manner, balancing business and client interests for long term sector sustainability. The exchange of knowledge and lessons learned amongst key organisations and businesses in the field of microinsurance will, with the Microinsurance Network facilitating these opportunities, enable global knowledge to result in local action, leading to better decision making, new partnerships and a real impact on the ground.
In numerous sessions, members were given a platform to share their concerns, knowledge and experience and use other experts as a sounding board. This type of experience-based learning is widely agree to be essential to the development of the nascent and complex microinsurance sector, exemplified by the presence of a new member who very recently started offering microinsurance and was privy to a wealth of information, advice and networking with experienced global players at the meeting.
“The Microinsurance Network can facilitate exchange between local players and peers from other countries and regions, which face similar challenges, to gain access to successful innovators. This is a really powerful resource for our members and the sector going forward”, said Mandla Shezi, from Hollard and secretary to the Board of the Network.
In the spirit of translating global knowledge acquired from expert meetings like the June Member Meeting into local action, “the Network is going to concentrate on increasing regional presence in Latin America, Asia, and Africa by providing effective opportunities for peer learning and advocacy work”, explained Michael J. McCord, chair of the Microinsurance Network and president of the MicroInsurance Centre.
A debate on consumer protection concluded that, in the absence of competitive microinsurance markets, regulators should focus on encouraging the insurance industry to offer services tailored to the low-income population, and take responsibility to safeguard client value without interfering with the markets.
The annual Network meeting included the pre-launch of a new major initiative – the annual “The State of Microinsurance” magazine, designed to help unfamiliar insurers understand the sector and keep microinsurance players in abreast of latest developments. The magazine was applauded by the Network members and will launch officially in July.
The Microinsurance Network is operated from its offices in Luxembourg.
