Families may not insure at all, if they can’t insure everyone
Rural remittance-receiving families in El Salvador typically have multiple family members working abroad. This phenomenon complicates their decision to buy a repatriation and remittance insurance policy that covers only one person (the initial policy introduced by Seguros Futuro).
Most of these families do not have the means to pay multiple premiums, and they perceive at least two challenges to insure even one family member. First, families struggle and resent having to choose which migrant family member to insure, if others must go uninsured. Second, they perceive that insuring only one migrant family member doesn’t adequately mitigate the risk of a death among all migrant family members. This leads to a feeling of not being protected, which in turns reduces the likelihood to purchase insurance at all.
Seguros Futuro has recognized the need to adapt its product to meet this demand for multiple migrants to be insured in one policy. It is designing a product that covers multiple family members, and includes a payout and a repatriation service payable on a first claim basis (the policy covers the first death amongst the family members insured under the policy).
For more on purchasing behaviour and Seguros Futuro, see their Learning Journey. The Learning Journey is a narrative account of the lessons being learned by the Facility's innovation partner as it implements its microinsurance project.