Working Groups

Impact

This Working Group was set up in 2007 and focuses on the impact of microinsurance on the client, especially in terms of financial protection, based on the real value for the poor discussion.

Latest News:

The Impact Working Group is proud to announce the launch of its Stocktaking Initiative website! This website serves as a clearinghouse of information on ongoing impact assessments of microinsurance.  We plan to continually update and add new features to this site, including adding completed impact assessments of microinsurance.

The Impact Working Group of the Microinsurance Network is requesting your participation in a Stocktaking Initiative, a global stocktaking of ongoing impact assessments of microinsurance programs.  The goal is to stay current with ongoing research on the impact of microinsurance.  Participating projects will be listed in a regularly updated online listing and in a brief note circulated among interested donors.

Planned activities for 2009:

• Conduct a broad stock-taking of current research on the impact of microinsurance;
• Develop a conceptual framework that lays out the dimensions of impact of various microinsurance products and processes on different levels of analysis (individual, household, community, enterprise and institution);
• Steer the creation of formal methodological guidelines to conduct a microinsurance impact assessment. The guidelines will suggest indicators and research methodology to assess each dimension of impact and will be catered to the type (health, weather, life, etc) and financial, time and labor capacities of the microinsurance unit;
• Promote the creation and sharing of quality evidence on the impact of microinsurance.

What is Impact?

Impact is defined as observable changes or effects on conditions or behaviors resulting directly or indirectly, positively or negatively, from a specific microinsurance program. Impact assessment observes, measures and describes the results of an intervention or programme.

Why assessing the Impact of microinsurance?

At present, very little is known about the impact of microinsurance on the client, household, community, enterprise or institution. Funding agencies may request program evaluation; however they rarely require schemes to assess their impact. As a result, there is a paucity of impact research available.  As more funds pour into the sector, such information on impact is urgently needed. Impact research, however, would need to build on high quality research methodologies, many of which are not yet developed for microinsurance impact assessment. High-quality impact research could assist microinsurance providers to better understand how their products are working by flagging any changes or side effects, positive or negative, attributed to their product. This information could then be used to:

• Produce evidence on the most effective programs;
• Learn from past mistakes and avoid ineffective designs;
• Create more effective programs;
• Include impact assessment in product design;
• Assist donor agencies in funding effective, evidence-based  programs.

What is needed?

Some lessons could be learned from impact assessment of microfinance programs, but need to be made available for microinsurance; many, however, do not exist yet and need to be developed and tested. High-quality microinsurance impact assessment should include a mixture of methodologies, tailored to respond to different impact dimensions depending on the type of insurance scheme.

What will the Impact Working Group supply?

The Impact Working Group of the Microinsurance Network consists of more than 20 experts in the domain of impact assessment and intends to help creating more evidence on the impact of microinsruance or to make existing evidence available for policy making.