Emerging Practices in Mobile Microinsurance

This paper outlines opportunities for leveraging the mobile channel including mobile money to deliver microinsurance. It also shares examples of attempts to do so from around the world. The paper provides new ideas for collaboration between stakeholders from the mobile and the insurance industry. The paper states that the mobile platform, including mobile money, can be used as a tool to reduce the costs of microinsurance and to help it to scale. Assets controlled by mobile network operators (MNOs) can help insurers reach customers in low-premium environments. MNOs have large physical and virtual networks that can reach significant numbers of clients, including the unbanked, at low cost. Some ways that insurers can leverage the MNOs communication channels, retail distribution networks, and payment mechanisms are:

• Mobile money agents can be tasked with collecting premium payments from customers;
• Customers could pay for their policies using their existing pre- or post-paid mobile accounts;
• Insurers can opt not to collect premiums from customers at all turning instead to MNOs to cover the cost of insurance on behalf of their customers.