2013 has been a busy year for the Facility, with the campaign, "Celebrating five years of pushing the innovation frontier in microinsurance" and the launch of the new and improved website. In case you missed it, here are some of the resources the Facility released this year

Blog entires

A Smoother Road to Building Quality Insurance at Scale discusses how to accelarate microinsurance development worldwide. (Churchill, C.; Dalal A.; 12/5/2013)

One key for bringing health care to the masses reflects on the impact of health microinsurance. (Churchill, C.; 9/2013)

Top 7 Opportunities for Funders to Advance Microinsurance identified how funders can contribute to the healthy development of the microinsurance sector (Sandmark, T.; Churchill, C.; 7/2013)

Why People Don't Buy Microinsurance reveals the factors and determinants that contribute to the low demand for microinsurance. (Matul, M.; Dalal, A.; 4/2013)

Finding Real World Relevance for Microinsurance Research discusses new research results that shed light on the way forward for policymakers or practitioners working on microinsurance. (Holtz, H,; 1/2013)

Microinsurance papers and briefing notes

Value-added services in health microinsurance, provides an overview of current developments in value-added services, highlights the experiences of those already providing them, and points to the potential they hold. (Pott, J.; Holtz, J.; 1/2013) Key points of the paper are summarized in BN #16. (2/2013)

Why people do not buy microinsurance and what can we do about it aims to help practitioners understand what factors determine demand for their microinsurance products. (Matul, M.; Dalal, A.; De Bock, Ombeline.; Gelade, W.; 2/2013) Key points of the paper are summarized in BN #17. (5/2013)

Audiovisual mass media campaigns for insurance education: Stages and lessons the stages of audiovisual media campaigns and presents lessons learnt. (Bel, S.; Pinzón Caicedo, M.; 3/2013) Key points of the paper are summarized in BN #18. (6/2013)

Beyond slogans: Good practices in promoting microinsurance products provides examples of good practice for developing promotional campaigns from dozen of case studies. (Lee, N.R.; Solana, J.M.; 8/2013). Key points of the paper are summarized in BN #19. (8/2013)

Leveraging health microinsurance to promote universal health coverage explores the hypothesis that government-sponsored initiatives should collaborate with private actors to accelerate the expansion of health insurance to informal workers and their families. (Kimball, M.; Phily, C.; Folsom, A.; Lagomarsino G.; Holtz, J.; 8/2013). Key points of the paper are summarized in BN #20. (9/2013)

Microcare Insurance Uganda - Case Study examines the factors that contributed to the rise and fall of Microcare as a provider of low-cost health insurance. (Greyling, L.; 9/2013)

Vimosewa’s resurgence: Increasing outreach and managing costs in a voluntary stand-alone microinsurance programme reflects the tensions faced by an organization trying to be socially focused and financially viable, and demonstrates how a resilient attitude can spur resurgence. (Oza, A.; Dalal, A.; Holtz, J.; 11/2013)

Mobile phones and microinsurance reveals good practices and lessons for insurers to consider when implementing mobile-based microinsurance. (Prashad, P.; Saunders, D.; Dalal, A.; 11/2013)

Removing obstacles to accessing microinsurance identifies barriers to accessing microinsurance and provides strategies to overcome them. (Cimon, E.; Harnasch, B.; Gross, P.; Fonseca, C.; 12/2013)

Research papers

Smallholder Participation in Hog Insurance and Willingness to Pay for Improved Policies: Evidence from Sichuan Province in China examines contributing factors to farmers' participation and their willingness to pay for improvements to theot current insurance policy. (Chen, K.; Hu, W.; Xiao C.; Xing, L.; 1/2013)

Understanding and Information Failures: Lessons from a Health Microinsurance Program in India,  attempts to understand the factors underlying the low take up and renewal rates frequently observed in insurance programmes in poor countries. (Platteau, J.; Ugarte Ontiveros, D.; 2/2013)

What is a Health Card Worth? An Evaluation of an Outpatient Health Insurance Product in Rural India, presents the results of a randomized control trial that evaluated the impact of CARE Foundation´s out-patient insurance cards. (Mahal, A.; Krishnaswamy, K.; Ruchismita, R.; Girish Babu, D.; 2/2013)

The Impact of Microinsurance on Asset Accumulation and Human Capital Investments: Evidence from a Drought in Kenya aims to investigate whether insurance transfer risk can in a way reduce the need for households to rely on costly coping strategies that undermine their future productivity. (Janzen, S.A.; Carter, M.R.; 3/2013)

Can Microinsurance Help Prevent Child Labor? An Impact Evaluation from Pakistan, explores how reducing vulnerability through insurance impacts child labour and schooling. (Landmann, A.; Frölich, M.; 5/2013)

The Impact of Health Insurance Education on Enrollment of Microfinance Institution Clients in the Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme, Northern Region of Ghana evaluates a consumer education intervention for microfinance clients by Freedom from Hunger and Sinapi Aba Trust designed to increase awareness, knowledge and eventually take-up rates of the National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana. (Schultz, E.; Metcalfe, M.; Gray, B.; 5/2013)

Borrowing from the Insurer: An Empirical Analysis of Demand and Impact of Insurance in China presents results from a randomized control trial in rural China designed to understand the impact of the timing of the premium payment on demand and whether insurance impacts investment against risk. (Liu, Y.; Chen, K.; Hill, R.; Xiao, C.; 7/2013)

Literature review on the impact of microinsurance provides a selective overview of the current state of research on the impact of microinsurance and explores the role played by insurance in developing countries. (De Bock, Ombeline.; Ugarte Ontiveros, D.; 10/2013)

Case briefs

Case Brief: Aseguradora Rural features how Aseguradora Rural is tackling the challenge of ensuring the understanding and use of its health microinsurance product on a large scale. (Solana, M.; Gonçalves, L. G. F.; Merry, A.; 5/2013)

Case Brief: IFFCO-Tokio General Insurance Co. presents how the introduction of radio frequency identification devices to address problems with claims allowed ITGI to better serve its clients and improve the viability of the scheme. the (Matul, M.; Dalal, A.; Merry, A.; 6/2013)

Case Brief: SAJIDA Foundation  highlights the experience of SAJIDA Foundation in using the PACE tool to improve the value of its product for clients. (Yang, M.; Merry, A.; 2013. 7/2013)

Case Brief: La Asociación Mexicana de Uniones de Crédito del Sector Social (AMUCSS) features the case of an intermediary that was able to extend access of a government agricultural insurance scheme developed to offer protection for farmers to small-scale farmers, who have previously struggled to access the scheme. (Ling, J.; Melchor Vila, M.; Solana, J.M.; 7/2013)

Videos

Putting clients first: The case of Sajida Foundation presents how the Sajida Foundation offers microinsurance products that are designed to address the basic lifecycle needs of the poor and the risks they face. (7/2013)

Driving change through peer learning explains why peer learning is a powerful tool for organizations to learn from each other. (7/2013)

For all the Microinsurance Papers, Briefing Notes, and Research Papers go to:

http://www.microinsurancefacility.org/publications

For all the Microinsurance Videos go to:

http://www.microinsurancefacility.org/videos