FSD Africa and ILO’s Impact Insurance Facility have entered into a partnership to promote innovation for micro-insurance products to serve low income households and MSMEs across Sub-Saharan Africa. Insurance penetration in Sub-Saharan Africa remains at dismally low levels with an estimated penetration rate of below 1%. This programme seeks to provide a cushion for low income households to better deal with shocks hence reducing their vulnerability.
FSD Africa will invest USD 1.83 million over 4 years in an innovation laboratory that will be managed by ILO’s Impact Insurance Facility. The innovation laboratory will support five insurance companies and/or distributors, operating in five different countries in sub-Saharan Africa, to develop innovative micro-insurance products that will reach 1 million new clients in 4 years. They will be selected through a competitive call for proposal process that will be managed by the ILO Impact Insurance Facility.
Selected insurance companies and distributors will also ive technical support for change management in order to facilitate the successful implementation of innovative insurance products. This will involve: providing support for changes in organisational structure, capacity building for staff in order to fill the gaps identified from a needs assessment process and the development of business analysis tools that will help to increase client value.
FSD Africa is delighted to partner with ILO’s Impact Insurance Facility to promote innovation for micro-insurance products. The long term goal is to enable the sector to achieve scale with a balance between broad inclusion, sufficient benefits, low premium rates and sustainability.
Paul Musoke, Director, Financial Institutions, FSD Africa
Learnings from the programme will be documented in a training module and toolkit that will be accessible to insurance companies and distributors. The insurance industry will also have access to case studies that will capture learnings from the programme. These documented resources will provide incentive and guidance to other insurance companies in developing micro-insurance products and related delivery channels.
We are excited to work with FSDA to enhance the social and economic development impact of insurance providers in Africa.
Michal Matul, Chief Project Manager of ILO’s Impact Insurance
