Second Inclusive Insurance Innovation Lab (2020-2021)

An initiative that came out of team Argentina’s participation in the second Inclusive Insurance Innovation Lab (iii-lab), “Superadoras” are insurance products developed specifically for female entrepreneurs to make them more resilient against financial shocks. The products are offered through an online platform and at affordable prices.

“Superadoras” and the companies that carry out this project were recognised by the Fundación Iberoamericana Alianza del Seguro. At the XII Summit, held in Buenos Aires on 10 September, international awards were given to projects that aim to promote and publicize the strategies and initiatives of companies in the insurance sector to integrate the SDGs into their business models as a lever for innovation and business competitiveness. This reaffirms the collaborative and innovative commitment of the “Women and Insurance” project that came out of the second iii-lab.
 

iii-lab alumni: Mohamed Feriss, Morocco, iii-lab 2

iii-lab alumni: Natalie Lopez Uris, Argentina, iii-lab 2

On 28-29 February, workshops on the implementation of the “Superadoras” campaign were held in Buenos Aires. This campaign is part of the “Women and Insurance” project, which was conceived by the Argentina country team during the second A2ii iii-lab (2020-2021).

The project is a collaborative public-private partnership between insurers and the Argentine Insurance Supervisor (Superintendencia de Seguros de la Nación). The workshops took place in the offices of implementation partners CNP Seguros and Agencia Di Paola Latina and aimed to bring together the Argentinian iii-lab team to reflect on the path taken since the initial launch of their social media campaign #MejorConSeguros. Teresa Pelanda, project manager for the iii-lab, and Regina Simões, A2ii regional coordinator for Latin America, recorded a video for the opening session.

During the event, participants highlighted that continuing with the work to raise awareness about insurance was a pillar. Through disruptive exercises, new and better ideas were raised by the team that will set the scene for this new stage in “Superadoras,” with the ultimate aim of facilitating women's access to insurance.”

As a result of the participation in the iii-lab, a second campaign called “Superadoras” was recently launched on 07 September 2023 by the five insurance companies that already developed #mejorconseguros and with support from the supervisor (SSN) and the Ministry of Finance. “Superadoras” are insurance products developed specifically for female entrepreneurs to make them more resilient against financial shocks. The products will be offered through an online platform and to affordable prices. The way that the insurance sector (including a wide range of insurance companies and broker representatives) has teamed up with the supervisor and their continued collaboration to date is an innovation in the Argentinian market and continues to shape interactions in the sector.

It is great to see how the lab team is continuing with its efforts to make insurance accessible to low income women. Watch the launch video here.

The results of the second iii-lab were presented in an A2ii-IAIS Public Webinar which was split into three parts: (1) An introduction to the iii-lab methodology; (2) Innovations and learnings in designing and implementing awareness-raising campaigns and new products; (3) Supervisors’ discussion on the innovation experience.   

The alum supervisors discussed the benefits of the lab for shaping their innovation strategy going forward. 

• Emmy Rugamba (National Bank of Rwanda), highlighted that participation enabled them, as a supervisor, to understand the challenges to greater financial inclusion faced in their jurisdiction. These included low insurance penetration, low awareness, and a lack of suitable products for the low-income segment - these challenges were universal across the four jurisdictions. He confirmed the need to focus on market development and encourage innovation. 
• A.V. Rao, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority India (IRDAI), contributed by saying that the lab has taken their regulatory approach to inclusive insurance to a different level. At IRDAI, they have now put the customers and their needs at the centre, and this was realised when the customers’ needs were manifested in their ask for a combi-product.
• For Malena Kramer, Superintentencia de Seguros de la Nación, Argentina (SSN), the #betterwithinsurance campaign in Argentina brought the public and private sectors together in addressing the great challenge of low access to insurance. 
• Salma Berrada, Supervisory Authority of Insurance and Social Welfare, Morocco (ACAPS) emphasised the supervisors’ leadership role in rallying relevant public and private stakeholders around the topic of inclusive insurance and maintaining this dynamic across the innovation lab process and beyond. Morocco will continue engaging in this multi-stakeholder dialogue within a dedicated committee.  

The 11 November marked the official closing of the second A2ii Inclusive Insurance Innovation Lab - and we could not be prouder to report the results these teams achieved! 

Video report
We have released a special video, where you can hear about the lab in the words of the lab members! 
 

A 20-month journey
From March 2020 to November 2021 four multistakeholder country teams from Argentina, India, Morocco, and Rwanda worked diligently on developing innovative solutions to advance inclusive insurance in their countries. Due to the pandemic what was initially planned as 15 in-person meetings, turned into an almost entirely online interaction among the participants using videoconferencing platforms and online whiteboards. As teams acknowledged the continued need for innovations in the inclusive insurance space, they put in considerable commitment and overcame challenges such as connectivity issues, conducting virtual learning journeys, increased care work needed at home and Coronavirus infections within the teams. Lasting relationships between key stakeholders from the public and private sector were established and a total of eight prototypes developed.

Four country teams developed eight prototypes - watch the video for details.

• Argentina is launching a social media campaign #mejorconseguros to raise awareness about the importance of insurance for low-income women. The team is also working on developing a freemium business model.
• India has experimented with caller tunes to raise awareness and is working on a combi-product to offer better products and services to the low-income segment.,
• Morocco has designed a digital interface using WhatsApp where clients can access a simple health insurance product, i.e. hospital cash, through chat and pay using loyalty points.
• Rwanda developed several insurance awareness programmes: an annual insurance week, radio and TV shows and university competitions. 

If you wish to learn more about the second iii-lab’s results, watch out for our Public Dialogue taking place early 2022 (tbd.).

We extend thanks to the lab teams for their dedication, commitment and their trust in our process in a disrupted pandemic time. We also thank our implementation partner Reos Partners and our funders DGIS and BMZ. 
 

Despite the continued Covid-19 restrictions, the second international process of the iii-lab has made fruitful progress. Each of the four country teams hosted a learning journey, inviting their peers to virtually visit their countries and learn more about local innovations not only from the insurance world. In between the sessions the teams have been diligently working to further develop their prototypes, choosing to develop solutions based on issues facing the insurance market in their jurisdictions. 

Argentina’s prototype focuses on raising insurance awareness and addressing cultural barriers. Their prototype involves all insurance companies working together on a social media campaign to inform the public about insurance, using tools such as storytelling and gamification. One of India’s groups is working on awareness as well; their solution proposes working with caller tunes so that people hear a message about insurance while waiting for their phone call to be answered. India’s second sub-team is developing a combi-product covering multiple risks, addressing the barrier of managing multiple products and receiving quality servicing. The prototype would entail a one-stop-shop and robust use of technology. The Moroccan team wanted to address high costs of health services in their country and developed a solution to utilise mobile phones to offer management of a minimum insurance coverage, including access to doctors through WhatsApp and lower, negotiated prices for medical services among other services. Team Rwanda is addressing the lack of trust and information in the insurance industry, as well as a lack of products which address the needs of the population. They are using platforms like the radio, Facebook, and Twitter to raise awareness and receive feedback on customers’ needs in order to design better insurance products.

On 6 May, the teams’ hard work on their prototypes culminated during the pitching session. They presented an elevator pitch of their prototypes to a panel of three experts: Natalia Escobar-Mejia, Senior Policy Advisor at the IAIS, Martin Mayer, co-founder of Romeo, and Emmanuel Mokobi, CEO of Prudential Life Insurance Ghana. The panel observed the teams’ pitches and after a round of open questions, they provided valuable feedback and suggestions which the teams are using to move their prototypes forward.
 

Central to all lab teams is education and awareness, marketing of products, and how to craft digital strategies to get messages across. Three experts joined us for this call. First we learned from Ivan Poltoracki, a senior marketing executive, about key factors to consider when developing a marketing/educational campaign. Following this, we heard about two innovative approaches to raise awareness about insurance, which were developed by AB Consultants, a Kenya-based microinsurance consultancy seeking to make financial services more accessible in Africa. Barbara Chesire-Chabbaga, Managing Director and Co-founder of AB Consultants and a participant of the first iii-lab, and Jeremiah Siage, Director & Digital Finance Specialist, talked about their experiences developing ResilientME!, a game designed to demystify risk management and insurance in a way that is fun and engaging. They also presented the insurance platform app – CoverApp developed by AB consultants, where people can purchase insurance and file claims on-the-go.

See our LinkedIn post.

During this phase, there was an emphasis on design-thinking methodology to build on the identification of broad priorities and to address them by developing their ideas into prototypes. The initial prototypes were presented to the hosting team and other lab teams for feedback on 19 January. Teams are now embarking on an iterative experimental process to test their prototypes.  

The global webinar on 15 December was on the topic of InsurTech, presented by Denise Garcia and Manoj Pandey. Based on the presentation, Virginia from the Argentinian team developed the following infographic:

After an analysis phase of roughly six months, the four iii-lab teams from Argentina, India, Morocco and Rwanda have now started work on defining possible innovations for their inclusive insurance sector. A2ii and Reos Partners are supporting the teams to adopt a design thinking methodology and ensure that innovations focus on customer needs.

Over five sessions, the multi-stakeholder teams’ goal was to come up with a handful of prototype solutions to develop their inclusive insurance market – to experiment with and implement on the ground in the next months. The ideas range from awareness-raising campaigns to products for informal workers and improving processes in the insurance industry to better serve its clients.

The iii-lab continued its online journey with the First International Workshop kicking off on 24 September when the four country teams (Argentina, India, Morocco, Rwanda) presented their countries and inclusive insurance sectors. 
After the presentations, participants were split into smaller groups.  

Session 2 on 1 October focused on leadership capacity development with participants peer-coaching on pre-defined leadership challenges. 

The teams are eager to connect across countries and overcome the challenge of not being able to meet physically by mastering the online tools, bringing in motivation and commitment.

The International Workshop will continue over the next few weeks. 

In the course of six online sessions the Rwanda team analysed its inclusive insurance sector and decided to focus its work on the following main beneficiary groups: farmers’ cooperatives & informal workers, e.g. individuals with temporary non-registered work or informal business owners. Next, based on methods explained in the lab, the team will conduct learning journeys where they will interview selected individuals from these groups to learn more about their lives and insurance needs.

Read our latest newsletter for the full update on the progress of the lab.

After three months of working in their respective country teams, the iii-lab participants from Argentina, India, Morocco and Rwanda finally had the chance to virtually meet each other in the first global call of the iii-lab 2020/21.

During a two-hour (!) call (in a playfully productive atmosphere powered by the enthusiasm of the country teams), around 40 lab members shared their pressing questions as well as the expertise that they have to offer. The lab’s hosting team was busy collecting and clustering all offers and will design the next sessions based on these insights.

After three months of working in their respective country teams, the iii-lab participants from Argentina, India, Morocco and Rwanda finally had the chance to virtually meet each other in the first global call of the iii-lab 2020/21.

The use of breakout rooms was particularly useful for this online call to split the participants into smaller groups to connect with each other and discuss important issues.

Due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, the in-person international workshop that was originally scheduled to take place in June had to be moved entirely online. The international process will now take place in the form of monthly global calls until international travel between all countries will be possible again.

While moving the programme online cannot replace the experience of in-person meetings, the teams have shown readiness to meet and learn from each other also virtually.

The iii-lab hosting team is continuously learning about online processes and adapting its programme to meet participants’ needs.

Read about the lab in Spanish on Argentina.gob.ar!

As the program content of the iii-lab had to be moved online, the A2ii team decided to split a 2-day workshop program into 6 online sessions of 2.5 hours. The Argentina team has now completed this workshop.

© Virginia Lingiardi, a member of the Argentina team who drew a storyboard showing how needs of potential customers need to be observed and not asked. 

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Read our June newsletter for the full update on the progress of the lab.

Argentina and Rwanda hold national workshops, as workshops and meetings are temporarily moved to virtual formats.

Read our newsletter report.

See the list of events.

On 4-5 March 2020, the first iii-lab national workshops were held in Hyderabad, India and Rabat, Morocco.

Read our newsletter report.

See the list of events.