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Welcome! In this newsletter, we provide you with updates on the work of the A2ii, events and publications, and experiences and learning on inclusive insurance regulation and supervision across jurisdictions over the past month.

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A2ii is hiring - Apply by 9 October!

We are recruiting for a new Advisor with previous experience in an insurance supervisory authority or a closely related field. For more information, see our vacancies page. The deadline is 9 October 2022.

Connect.A2ii Updates

A2ii launches two self-paced training modules for supervisors on gender lens and practices in insurance | 9 September  

Existing biases about women’s risk mitigation needs lead to underrepresentation of women in the insurance industry, as a viable customer segment, and in regulation and supervision.   

The two new training modules - Applying a gender lens to inclusive insurance and How to conduct a rapid gender diversity assessment – provide regulators, supervisors and policy makers practical tools and assessments that lead to actionable insights to improve women’s access to insurance and advance gender equality. 

The modules are hosted on the Connect.A2ii learning platform and are open to all supervisors with a Connect account free of charge. Read more here…   

Recent events

Inclusive Insurance Training Programme | 23 August – 15 September

The 2022 Inclusive Insurance Training Programme, the first global programme organised by the A2ii, IAIS, and Toronto Centre, concluded on 15 September 2022. There were 34 participants from 23 jurisdictions representing Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The programme took place over four weeks through a mix of modules hosted on the Connect.A2ii learning platform and live sessions on MS Teams. 

Programme leaders Andrea Camargo, Craig Thorburn, and Patricia Vargas delivered sessions on topics of inclusive insurance regulation and supervision, the role of the supervisor, prudential aspects in supervision, innovation and technology, consumer protection, index-based and agriculture insurance, KPIs, climate, and action planning. We also welcomed special guests - Manoj Pandey, A2ii for an interactive session on gender, as well as Michael Kofi Andoh, National Insurance Commission of Ghana, Yegna Priya Bharath, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, and Tomás Soley, Superintendency of Insurance of Costa Rica, who each presented on inclusive insurance in their jurisdictions and took questions, sharing their valuable experience with the attendees. 

At the end of the training, participants completed and presented action plans intended to address an issue in their jurisdiction. Their priorities included working on regulatory frameworks and a definition of microinsurance, developing capacity building programmes, addressing low insurance penetration rates, optimising data collection, insurance education and awareness, increasing products targeted to women, and piloting index-based insurance. 

Keep an eye out next year for our announcements – we tentatively plan to offer another training in English in spring 2023 and a training in Spanish for autumn 2023. 

iii-lab International Dialogue | 19-21 September

From 19 to 21 September, the A2ii Inclusive Insurance Innovation Lab (iii-lab), hosted the 2022 International Dialogue gathering country teams from the third cohort: Costa Rica, Grenada, Zambia and Zimbabwe, along with lab 1 and lab 2 alumni from Albania, Argentina, Ghana, Kenya, Mongolia, Morocco, and Rwanda. 

Since 2017, the A2ii, supported by Reos Partners, has brought together 12 multi-stakeholder country teams from around the world in a one-year Inclusive Insurance Innovation Lab programme. The teams engaged in continuous exchange and learning, leading to innovative solutions for increasing resilience of the most vulnerable populations in their societies.  

The alumni shared their experiences from past lab experiences and supported the third cohort in finalising their pilot plans. The third iii-lab – the climate lab – country teams presented new approaches they have developed aiming at tackling one of the greatest global threats of our time - climate change.  

• Costa Rica developed a web-based open platform for small hoteliers to increase the resilience of their businesses through risk assessments and sustainable solutions.  

• Grenada worked on a mutual risk pool to provide direct relief to farmers and fisherfolk after a declared climate-related disaster.  

• Zambia developed a pilot to raise awareness on insurance by engaging community champions to disseminate information to farmers and other agriculture stakeholders. 

• Zimbabwe worked on The Farmers’ Basket bundle which offers affordable Area Yield Index Insurance (AYII) with inputs like pesticides, fertilizers, and irrigation equipment, among others.  

The iii-lab's reach extends to close to 150 key stakeholders from the inclusive insurance sectors in 12 countries. Since 2017 they have been successfully engaging in dialogue and mutual learning which has inspired and equipped them to assume leadership within their sectors and/or organisations.  

‘The international peer exchange facilitated by the lab helped me better understand different challenges faced by different markets and the innovative steps the stakeholders are taking to address these challenges.’ - Germán, Lab 3 participant from Costa Rica 

With strong stakeholder networks and innovative country prototypes, the teams continue to work on their vision to serve as vehicles for inclusion, providing protection, resilience and inclusivity among the vulnerable populations in their countries. Click here to see photos from the event.  

ASSAL-IAIS Regional Training Seminar for Insurance Supervisors | 22-23 September  

The ASSAL-IAIS Regional Training Seminar for Insurance Supervisors entitled ‘Challenges of Insurance Systems in Latin America’ took place in the SBS Training Centre in Lima, Peru. Co-organised by the Latin American Association of Insurance Supervisors (ASSAL), the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii), Microinsurance Network (MiN), and the Bank, Insurance and AFP Superintendency of Peru (SBS). The event was attended by 97 supervisors and 29 industry representatives, both physically and virtually, from 19 jurisdictions. 

The seminar covered current topics in insurance supervision and regulation, such as risk-based capital, stress tests, cybersecurity, catastrophic risk and protection gaps. The A2ii and MiN co-organised the last three sessions about the protection gap focusing on pandemic-derived risks.

Nicolás Morales (MiN) moderated a panel discussion in which Francisco Astelarra (FIDES), Luciano Bedoya (Seguros Pacífico), Christian Mora Aponte (Superintendencia Financiera Colombia), Glen Mulready (NAIC) and Tomás Soley (SUGESE) presented the main challenges supervisors and insurance industry faced during the pandemic.  

Regina Simoes (A2ii) moderated another panel discussion with: Alistair Gough (IAIS), Malena Kramer (SSN Argentina), Sara Orozco (MiN) and Miguel Solana (UNDP), who covered the topic of the role of supervisors in closing the protection gap and possible strategies for dealing with pandemic risks for the most affected sectors. The last session was interactive, where participants were grouped and discussed strategies for closing the protection gap of some of the most affected groups during the Covid-19 pandemic: MSMEs, women, and migrants.  

Q&A Special with the IAA on ‘Leveraging Actuarial Skills’ - for Supervisors | 27 September 

In July, the A2ii in partnership with the IAA and the IAIS launched the self-directed virtual training program ‘Leveraging Actuarial Skills’ on the Connect.A2ii learning platform. Since then, more than 100 insurance supervisors have enrolled in the course. 

To complement the self-directed part of the training and address any open questions, all graduates were invited to a Q&A Special on 27 September with Fred Rowley, Jules Gribble, Alex Kühnast and Jeff Blacker from the actuarial trainer team. During the session, an engaging discussion evolved around topics including trainers’ recommendations on what to look out for when reviewing actuarial reports, quantitative performance indicators for reviewing ORSAs as well as machine learning pricing models. 

‘This training aims at strengthening the understanding and application of the actuarial concepts and tools. It is an important precondition for effective insurance supervision and regulation. I highly recommend this course to junior to middle level staff of national insurance supervisory authorities!’ -Kosta Spaseski, North Macedonia 

We encourage all interested supervisors to register for an account on Connect.A2ii and complete the training for a chance to attend future Q&A Specials. 

MENA Seminar on Climate Risk Supervision and the Protection Gap I 27-28 September

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Seminar on Climate Risk Supervision and the Protection Gap was organised in Muscat jointly by the Capital Market Authority (CMA) of the Sultanate of Oman and the Supervisory Authority of Insurance and Social Welfare of the Kingdom of Morocco (ACAPS). The event was organised as a response to growing concern in the region on climate change issues.  

On the first day, Hannah Grant delivered opening remarks on behalf of A2ii and panellists discussed supervisory challenges in the MENA region. Stephen Nolan from the Sustainable Insurance Forum (SIF) presented the IAIS and SIF joint application paper on climate-risk supervision. 

The second day was dedicated to the role of the supervisor in closing the climate risk protection gap and was facilitated by A2ii and IAIS. Manuela Zweimueller spoke about the role of insurance supervisors in multi-stakeholder approaches to address pandemic protection gaps and presented the work of the IAIS and Financial Inclusion Forum (FIF). Hannah Grant presented the A2ii paper on The role of insurance supervisors in climate risk insurance and a joint A2ii-UNCDF publication on index insurance. This was followed by a roundtable on supervisory actions to increase resilience against climate risk in the MENA region. In the capacity building session, Milena Kozomara presented the inclusive insurance innovation lab (iii-lab) and spoke about A2ii’s capacity building support to supervisors. For more details on the seminar agenda, please visit this link.  

Regulatory challenges and supervisory demands in facilitating remittance-linked insurance - Public Dialogue | 29 September 

On 29 September, the A2ii-IAIS-UNCDF Public Dialogue on ‘Regulatory challenges and supervisory demands in facilitating remittance-linked insurance’ took place virtually, with 100 participants joining the call. The recording is available on our website. 

This Dialogue was organised by the Access to Insurance Initiative, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, and the United Nations Capital Development Fund. The aim of the Dialogue was to have a multi-stakeholder discussion around the regulatory, product and delivery challenges in providing insurance and pension schemes to the more than 280 million migrants living and working outside their countries. 

After the welcoming remarks given by Janina Voss, A2ii, was a presentation by William Price, CEO of D3P Global, with an overview of the potential market size of insurance and pensions in the remittance-sending market, highlighting the importance of reducing remittance costs to make migrant’s resources more productive. Price also presented the potential models in which insurance and pension could become more available to migrants and their families, focusing on a collaborative public-private model. Additionally, the top 10 priorities for regulators, based on UNCDF’s research, and some examples were also presented. 

This presentation was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Manuela Zweimüller, Head of Implementation of the IAIS, joined by Garance Wattez-Richard, Head of AXA Emerging Customers, Brian T. Gale Sibuyan, Manager of Regulation, Enforcement and Prosecution Division in the Philippine Insurance Commission, and Jeremy Leach, Founder and Executive Director of the Insurtech Inclusivity Solutions.  

The speakers shared their insights in three rounds of questions, starting with examples of the products and projects they are working on, followed by a discussion on the implementation and delivery challenges, and finishing with questions related to regulation and the role of the supervisors.  

Jeremy Leach shared some insights about the project Inclusivity Solutions, an emerging market Insurtech based in South Africa operating globally. Inclusivity Solutions provides the platform with end-to-end processing for insurance products and supported research and support for their partners. They have focused on tailoring their products for migrant customers using a digital platform, simplifying every aspect of the insurance value chain. Leach shared some of the opportunities that digitalisation poses, as well as the challenges that regulatory grey areas regarding digital channels pose.  

Garance Wattez-Richard shared AXA’s strategy of securing transfers  and the recipients in their home countries. She also explained the challenges faced when implementing migrant insurance. The main challenge considered was the complexity of the existing products, as well as the differences in regulation between both ends of migration corridors, making the regulation around remittance recipients more difficult to navigate, especially for multinational enterprises.  

Brian T. Gale Sibuyan explained how  the IC Philippines has been working to protect migrant workers through the provision for  compulsory insurance for agencies hiring Filipino workers. This insurance covers some life, health and legal aspects and the employer covers the premium. However, some benefits have proved to be lacking, and health insurance has been challenging to implement due to the lack of balance between the interests of the agencies looking to hire Filipino workers and the interests of the workers themselves.  

Some of the aspects that were mentioned throughout the session were the need for simple, seamless insurance products, the involvement of different actors and the need for diverse solutions, given the diversity of the migrant population. Regarding regulation, a highlighted aspect was the challenges posed by KYC and data protection standards, as well as insurance cross-selling schemes and licencing.  

Another important issue that was mentioned oin various occasions was the differences between men and women migrants’ needs, and how these can be reflected in the products targeted at them. 

The panel discussion was followed by concluding remarks by Premasis Mukherjee, senior financial specialist with the migration and remittance team at UNCDF. He highlighted the growing importance of this topic, and UNCDF’s plans to continue having the needed discussions between various stakeholders to make social protection schemes more broadly available to migrant workers and their families.  

ILO Webinar on ‘Market research: insights from the women’s market’ | 29 September

The ILO’s Impact Insurance Facility, as part of the Insurance for Development course, organised a webinar for the course participants on 29 September on market research and insights from the women’s market. A2ii was invited to share its experience on working with insurance supervisors to promote women’s access to inclusive insurance.  

Manoj Pandey spoke on A2ii’s work on insurance supervisory capacity building, especially with EMDEs, to increase gender awareness. He emphasised that gender-aware insurance supervision is necessary to ensure that supervisors intentionally enable women’s access to insurance, taking gender-diverse constraints that women face into account. This can include lack of identification documents, ownership of property and other socio-cultural limitations. He also talked about the need for gender-disaggregated data and gender diversity in leadership in the insurance industry as well as in supervisory organisations as important factors for a more gender-equitable inclusive insurance market. Lastly, he presented the gender training modules for insurance supervisors and the gender disaggregated data toolkit templates developed by A2ii that will help insurance supervisors enhance their capacities.

Lisa Morgan, from the ILO’s impact insurance facility, emphasised the relevance of market research in the insurance for development space, the value propositions of qualitative and quantitative research methods and when they are relevant. She also talked about the tools such as PACE developed by the facility and how these can be used for informing inclusive insurance businesses. Gilles Renouil, Head of Insurance Products at Women’s World Banking, shared how market research has helped WWB in contextualising their products to the markets they have worked in. He shared many real examples of how insights from market research, both quantitative and qualitative, can be used to make inclusive insurance solutions more relevant for women customers.  

Upcoming events

International Conference on Inclusive Insurance | 24-28 October 

The International Conference on Inclusive Insurance will take place from 24-28 October in Kingston, Jamaica, with the A2ii involved in three sessions. On the morning of 24 October, as a pre-conference workshop, the A2ii and UNCDF will jointly hold Workshop 1: Training workshop on index insurance best practices for regulators and practitioners in the insurance sector. Next, Hannah Grant is facilitating the first plenary session of the conference on Day 1, 25 October, Plenary 1: Reaching scale in small markets: Regulatory harmonisation in the Caribbean. Finally, on Day 2, 26 October, Hannah Grant will be a speaker at Plenary 4: Insurance and pension for migrant workers: Need and the business case. 

Plenaries 1 and 4 will be available online for virtual attendees, including with Spanish translation. For more on the agenda, please see the conference website. 

Publications

The role of supervisors in multi-stakeholder approaches to address pandemic protection gaps 

As part of a broader set of lessons learnt from Covid-19, the IAIS and A2ii have jointly published a note The role of supervisors in multi-stakeholder approaches to address pandemic protection gaps. The note examines the role insurance supervisors could play in the design, development and implementation of insurance-based programmes for pandemic risk. The note considers key characteristics of proposals – including public-private partnerships and risk pools – and outlines the role(s) that supervisors can play as future initiatives are developed. 

The note focuses on gaps in coverage for types of risk where diversification is more difficult to achieve, in particular coverage for non-damage business interruption (BI) losses in the context of pandemics. In this regard, the note draws parallels with supervisory approaches to address other types of risk that challenge the principle of diversification.  

Staffing Update

We are pleased to welcome Lulama Mafunda to the A2ii team who will be contributing to A2ii’s work in the Sub-Saharan African region as Deputy Regional Coordinator.

Lulama is a manager in the Prudential Authority of the South African Reserve Bank. She is responsible for the prudential supervision of small to medium- sized insurers. She is also part of the Prudential Authority Climate Task Team (PACTT) which is responsible for drafting the supervisory guidance and framework in respect of climate risk. She has been a prudential supervisor since 2008 and holds a Bachelor of Accounting degree and an Honours Degree in Taxation. 
 

Useful Tools on Our Website

Insurance and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The SDG pages include resources on the importance and the role of insurance across nine SDGs: 01 No Poverty, 10 Reduced Inequalities, 02 Zero Hunger, 03 Good Health and Well-being, 05 Gender Equality, 08 Decent Work and Economic Growth, 09 Industry Innovation and Infrastructure, 13 Climate Change and 17 Partnerships for the Goals.

Supervisory KPIs Lexicon

Interactive, searchable directory of KPIs for insurance supervisors across four pillars: prudential soundness, market conduct, insurance market development and the Sustainable Development Goals, with four accompanying handbooks.

Inclusive Insurance Regulations Map

The interactive map incorporates data about regulation and regulation which supports inclusive insurance sourced through A2ii's research, work and interaction with supervisory authorities worldwide. 

ICP Self-assessment Tool

The tool is intended to help supervisors assess the level of observance of the Insurance Core Principles (ICPs).