Good things come in threes — The third edition of the Impact Insurance Academy
From 20 to 24 November 2023, the International Training Centre of the ILO in Turin (Italy) hosted the third edition of the Impact Insurance Academy, bringing together more than 60 professionals from 24 countries, all united by the common goal of wanting to create better insurance solutions for the working poor and other vulnerable groups.
The Academy is a unique opportunity to learn from more than twenty years of experience and innovations in inclusive insurance facilitated by the ILO’s Impact Insurance Facility. The 2023 edition was made possible thanks to the support of our partners Access to Insurance Initiative, Agence Française de Développement, AXA, InsuResilience Investment Fund, the Microinsurance Network and Munich Re Foundation. By combining plenary sessions with specific electives by the choice of participants, participative activities, case studies and intensive discussions, the Academy offers a dynamic learning environment for participants and experts from all over the world to discuss ways of developing inclusive insurance.
This is one of the most exciting, and perhaps challenging, aspects of the Academy: the diversity of participants. The participants included representatives from multiple stakeholders in the inclusive insurance space, ranging from regulators to insurers, government ministries, intermediaries (including insurtechs and aggregators such as banks, microfinance institutions and non-governmental organizations) and development sectors players both at national and international level. The high calibre of these participants is what sets the Academy apart from similar initiatives.
“The thing that stood out to me was the high calibre of the participants. The content that we provide is like a skeleton — there is a structure to it, with logical links between the plenaries and the electives. But the real value to the Academy is provided by the participants, who are the muscles around the bones. Because we were so fortunate to have such an engaged and experienced group of participants, together we were able to craft a pretty impressive body.”
Craig Churchill, Impact Insurance Facility Leader
During the plenaries and the electives, we harnessed and leveraged the experience of the participants. They were able to share their knowledge, using a methodology where sections of the modules can be conducted by participants. For instance, asking participants to share their own learnings on product development helped us demonstrate the entire product development process. For example, the National Agriculture Insurance Company of Senegal (CNAAS) explained how they used historical data and weather stations to develop relevant agriculture insurance products and to assess losses.
The Academy exposed attendees to new ideas, such as women-focused insurance products or insurance targeted to micro, small and medium entrepreneurs. For example, APA Insurance in Kenya walked the group through the development and launch of their new ‘APA SHEild’ initiative, which is a programme designed specifically for women, and is based on three pillars: protection, health and wellness and wealth. We also learned about AIA’s journey to understanding and successfully serving different segments of the women’s market in Sri Lanka. The emphasis on both cross-cutting topics such as product innovation, distribution, technology, key performance indicators and public-private partnerships, in combination with specific product-related topics such as health and agriculture insurance, helped in this exercise.
We expect that the discussions and lessons during the Academy will prove to be useful in the various contexts of the participants. Insurance companies and intermediaries, motivated by the potential of targeting women as a new market, are now re-evaluating their portfolios and processes. Regulators meanwhile are reviewing regulations to ease access for insurers to women customers, as seen in the ‘Krishi Sakhi’ example in India. A Pakistani regulator participant gained insights for improving agriculture loans, while colleagues from Ghana explored an ‘insurance pool’, a Tanzanian banker learned to develop inclusive insurance products and a UNHCR colleague aims to incorporate insurance, particularly in agriculture, for the benefit of refugees and displaced persons.
The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. To measure this impact of the Academy, we will monitor what happens next: what happens when participants go back to their day jobs? Which insights and lessons gleaned from the Academy will they put into practice? We hope that the networking started at the Academy, reinforced by our highly interactive training style, has laid the foundation for building important relationship between participants that will continue far into the future as we walk this journey together, albeit from different sides of the planet. We will be keen to follow up, check in, and see what happens next, to see if the Impact Insurance Academy really has impact, by enhancing the resilience of the working poor and other vulnerable groups.
“Having made our way through a global pandemic, meeting in person was indeed an immense privilege. While we have discovered that we can do many things online, there are some things that just cannot be replaced in the virtual setting. Something magical happens when you bring together people with the common goal of creating insurance for the vulnerable.”
Lisa Morgan, Technical Specialist at the ILO’s Impact Insurance Facility
