Indian insurance and finance expert to share fundamentals of micro insurance and micro pension
Insurance24 Reporter
Harare – Indian Insurance and Finance expert Ayandev Saha will next month headline the fundamentals of micro insurance and micro pension workshop that will be co-hosted by the Insurance and Pension Commission (Ipec) and the Insurance Institute of Zimbabwe.
The workshop schedule for October seeks to build capacities inside organisations to develop Micro Insurance and Micro Pensions products including designing, underwriting and pricing.
The workshop is largely a culmination of the IPEC’s recently launched micro insurance framework that is in line with the national financial inclusion agenda targeting the previously excluded population such as small-to-medium enterprises, peasant farmers, vendors and other low income earners.
The policy framework entails development of micro-insurance products that are affordable to the lowest income earner. In that regard, several companies have introduced such products with minimum rates of as low as 50 cents while the payout can be as high as $500.
According to the FinScope survey done in 2014, 70% of adults in the country were not insured. Of the 30% with insurance, 77% of them are funeral insurance which shows a huge gap on the insurance uptake.
Zimbabwe’s insurance penetration ratio is expected to increase to 20 percent from the current 3, 6 percent in the next two years largely driven micro insurance.
The penetration rate, measured as the ratio of premium underwritten in a particular year to the gross domestic product (GDP), reflects the level of development of a country’s insurance sector.
The relevance of micro pensions, micro pension product design and sustainability as well as the role of micro employers administrators and the regulator are some of the topics to be discussed as well as partnerships and investments opportunities for banks micro finance institutions and mobile network operators.
Micro insurance will be explained in terms of client relations and how to ensure client access as well as micro insurance products and micro reinsurance.
Saha has high expertise on access to finance, micro insurance, economic development, business products development social capital impact evaluations, consumer protections policy design as well capital regulations.
