Actors

These products can be offered by a variety of actors with various statuses and activities: formal insurers (insurance companies), microfinance institutions (MFIs), health care providers, farming and health-care cooperatives, traditional companies (funeral providers, for example) and many other categories of institutions. 

Microfinance institutions may hold a unique position in the world of microfinance because they work with broad networks and are already the financial services providers of low-income clients. 

Some MFIs, act as direct insurers, offering health-care insurance and asset insurance.  Others consider they do not possess the technical skills that would enable them to offer insurance services, although they do have networks among poor populations. 

Those then cooperate with professional insurers who own the required technical expertise.

Source: Text based on Dossier thématique Micro-assurance ©2007, www.lamicrofinance.org