Hanson Wade

Workshop A: Using Technology to Maximise Service Delivery and Minimise Cost to Clients

Microinsurance providers face immense pressures to increase efficiency whilst continuously improving service to clients. Alongside a growing demand for microinsurance products there are increased regulatory reporting requirements and greater competition from local and international insurance providers, all of which add to the pressures to improve efficiency and service. The use of technology to enable and support effective business processes can and must help overcome these pressures. However the selection of the right technologies and systems to support client, policy and claims administration is crucial and can ‘make or break’ the business. This workshop will outline and analyse the existing technologies applicable to microinsurance and will attempt to help you identify the right approach for your business.

Attend the workshop and examine the following points:

• Who are the users of technology for microinsurance?
• The role of technology in making microinsurance accessible
• Traditional and innovative IT models and solutions available to support business processes – for example using mobile platform technology for premium collections and claim payments in rural areas
• How does the cost of technology translate into overall benefits?
• Examples and case studies of how specific technologies have been applied at the different levels of the business

About Your Facilitator

Martin Fuller
Chief Technology Officer
MICROENSURE

Martin Fuller has been Chief Technology Officer at MicroEnsure since August 2009, having previously been engaged on a consulting basis since early in 2009. His background includes extensive IT consulting, business process consulting, and project/programme management with major blue chip and public sector organizations. His systems experience covers implementation of both large scale enterprise wide solutions and development of targeted technology solutions to address specific business needs.

Previous roles include Professional Services Director with Mouchel Group plc, and Managing Director, Archway Consulting Limited, a specialist eProcurement implementer. He holds a 1st Class MA Honours and an MPhil from Cambridge University.

Workshop B: Index Based Crop Insurance: A Way to Secure World Food Access

In 2030, the world’s population is expected to be more than 8 billion people – most of the growth coming from developing countries. Food access will become a major challenge over the next decades. This is particularly relevant as the effects of climate change - in the form of floods, tsunamis, storms and droughts - are being felt by farmers in developing countries. Index based crop insurance provides a safety net for farmers by reducing the financial risk due to adverse weather effects. This session looks at how index based crop insurance can be implemented to ensure food supplies are maintained to sustain a burgeoning population:

• Analysing how insurance could can secure crop by avoiding fraud and anticipating weather change
• Delivering inexpensive, accessible microcrop insurance to poor communities
• How to protect farmers, their families, the MFI’s in developing counties where agriculture is still one of the largest economic activity
• Thinking dynamically regarding technological and operational aspects of delivering crop insurance
• How do you know if disaster actually struck?
• Creating trust with low income clients
• How can insurance avoid fraud and anticipate weather change
• Analysing a feasibility study to develop index based crop insurance and its successful implementation results

About Your Facilitators

Philippe Rives
Executive President
PLANET GUARANTEE

Philippe Rives as the Executive President of PlaNet Guarantee is in charge of developing and implementing microinsurance projects for MFIs in line with international insurance and reinsurance groups. He has successively been Commercial Director and Deputy Managing Director of Insurance Companies, Mutuals societies and Insurance broking agencies. He undertakes with the Planet guarantee team micro insurance Consulting activities – Feasibility studies leading to new product development and implementation – as well as Insurance Brokerage and Third Party Administrator.

Mr Rives has a BA Honours in European Business Administration from the Middlesex Business School, London and is a graduate from the Centre d’Etudes Superieures Européenne de Management (the ESC Reims group). He teaches at the Ecole Superieure d’Assurance in Paris.

Lunch

Workshop C: Financial Capacity Building Via Risk Transfer and Partnership Formation

The effective and efficient use of enterprise risk management practices such as microreinsurance are vital to the short- and long-term viability of microinsurance program operations. Most microinsurers lack sufficient access to meaningful secondary risk transfer solutions. This lack of access hampers market massification and product diversification. It also threatens the financial solvency of existing and potential new microinsurance products and programs, as well as the solvency of their existing and potential low-income clients. This session looks at the following subject areas to ensure microinsurers are able to address key risk management concerns:

• How to model for risk in microinsurance as typical actuarial tables will not apply
• Access to efficient and effective secondary risk transfer mechanisms
• Access to intellectual capital from across the micro(re)insurance supply chain
• Why microreinsurance and other enterprise risk management strategies are important
• Successful guidelines for capacity building

About Your Facilitators

Alex Bernhardt
ARe, ARM-P, AIS, Assistant Vice President
GUYCARPENTER

Assistant Vice President Alex Bernhardt is a member of Guy Carpenter & Company LLC’s Professional Liability specialty and serves on the firm’s Micro Risk Solutions group. Alex spearheaded Guy Carpenter's recent grant writing initiative, which culminated in the firm's receipt of a grant from the Microinsurance Innovation Facility to pursue the creation of a global microreinsurance facility. The facility is a partnership between the International Labour Organization and the Gates Foundation. This grant has positioned the firm as a global leader in the intermediation of microinsurance risks. In addition, Alex contributes content to industry publications, including a recent article in Microfinance Insights regarding the maximization of microinsurance investment returns. He has also worked on an array of internal initiatives, accounts and lines of business.

Based in Seattle, Washington (US), Alex sits on the board of SeattleMicrofinance.org (SeaMo), a microfinance connector organization. He has obtained the designations of Associate of Reinsurance, Associate of Risk Management for Public Entities and Associate of Insurance Services.

Workshop D: Tapping into Investment Opportunities in Microinsurance

It is estimated that 70 percent of the world's 2 billion plus poor live in rural areas, of whom only just 3 percent have some form of insurance. This represents a huge customer base and opportunity to tap into. Beyond financial capital, investee companies must be aware of the processes to support business planning, product design, regulatory and risk management, and development of efficient high-volume distribution channels. LeapFrog Investments is the first global investment fund focused exclusively on businesses that meet the insurance and related financial needs of low-income people in developing countries. Jim will conduct a workshop on investment opportunities in the microinsurance market.

• Reasons for the commercial interest in microinsurance
• Overview of investment in microinsurance by major insurers and reinsurers in their own microinsurance portfolio
• Overview of investments by investors
• Examples of the kinds of deal opportunities in microinsurance

About Your Facilitators

Jim Roth
Principal
LEAPFROG INVESTMENTS

Jim is a leading expert in the global microinsurance sector. Formerly, he was Vice President of The Microinsurance Centre, ILO Chief Technical Advisor on microinsurance in India, and consultant to multinational insurance companies such as AIG and Allianz and banks such KFW and ADB. Jim has sourced and negotiated deals with microinsurance distribution networks; he has developed partnerships between commercial insurers and MFIs/NGOs; and he has trained over 50 leaders of MFIs to sell microinsurance.

Jim led the 100 Country Landscape Report on Microinsurance and co-authored the manual on Making Microinsurance Work for MFIs. Jim holds a PhD on microfinance from Cambridge.