Microinsurance Conference focuses on ways to reach more in India

Microfinance Focus, Dec. 21, 2009: In India, the penetration of mainstream insurance is as low as 4.7% (as of 2007) and the reach of microinsurance is even lower. This became the focus of the national microinsurance conference that was held last week to discuss and reflect on the steps taken in bringing vital financial protection services to this vulnerable majority. In addition, the speakers provided insight on the right way forward for the industry.

Though there clearly exists an untapped and largely unexplored market for micro insurance in India, constraints including lack of reliable data for pricing and the absence of alternate means of assessing risk involved hinder sector growth. Furthermore, the problem of the distribution and servicing in areas with little adequate infrastructure, or even at larger scales, is ever present.

The participants discussed various innovations developed to counter the above challenges and deliberated on other issues faced in bringing microinsurance to varied livelihoods and communities, from fisheries, to livestock, from the migrant labourer to the tenant farmer. Promising solutions put forward included community based health insurance schemes, such as those practiced by VIMO SEWA, weather and NDVI based insurance schemes, currently being researched by CIRM, and a ‘retail’ programme called Max Vijay, where insurance premiums could be ‘topped up’ like mobile phones, currently trialled in Agra by Max New York Life Insurance Company
The conference on the “Status of Microinsurance in India” was organised in New Delhi on Dec. 10 and 11 by the UNDP, the Centre for Insurance and Risk Management (CIRM) and Centre for Micro Finance (CMF) at the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR). The organizers plan to host this event annually.
Mr. K. N. Rao, Deputy General Manager, AIC, Mr. V. Saikumar, Officer on Special Duty, IRDA, sector specialists such as Dr. Somil Nagpal, Health Specialist, World Bank, and Craig Churchill, Head, Microinsurance Innovation Facility at the ILO, Mr. Vijay Athreye, Rural Head, TATA-AIG Life Insurance Company and Mr. Amarnath A, CEO, Bharti-Axa General Insurance Company, Dr. Nishant Jain, Technical Advisor, GTZ, a key player in the government’s RSBY project and Mr. Mathew Titus, Executive Director, Sa-Dhan and others addressed the conference.

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