Breaking the Ice: The Role of Insurance Associations in Insurance Consumer Education

This brief discusses about how insurance associations (IAs) can effectively deliver insurance consumer education (ICE). Based on a review of the experiences of IAs in five countries, namely Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Mexico, and South Africa, the paper discusses the steps that should be taken in order to implement a successful ICE. These include preparation and planning, focusing content, defining communication strategies, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E). The paper makes the following recommendations:

• Defining a sustainable funding strategy is important, in order to guarantee the long-term viability of the ICE program;
• Keeping different stakeholders and target audience in mind during the whole process is vital, so as to ensure that initiatives are relevant for all parties;
• Creating an effective consumer education program requires careful planning, meticulous content and delivery design, and strategic partnerships amongst various stakeholders;
• Piloting is an important step that should not be skipped, since it can highlight possible challenges and ensure that the ICE initiative will work better on a larger scale;
• Linking to insurance products in the market is crucial, since education initiatives tend to generate expectation in the target audience;
• M&E activities, while challenging and sometimes costly, are critical to developing an effective education program.