Poverty Africa Health Programme - Health MicroInsurance: Notes from a Visit July 2002

This paper introduces Poverty Africa as an international non-governmental organization (NGO) headquartered in Dar es Salaam. It has a holistic approach to development with multi-faceted interventions:

• Microfinance;
• Education;
• Nutrition;
• HIV/AIDS prevention;
• Healthcare microinsurance.

Poverty Africa has the following insurance products in its healthcare portfolio, with varying premiums, durations and coverage norms:

• Insurance against basic out-patient healthcare;
• Insurance against in- and out-patient care including simple surgeries and ambulance;
• Insurance against complicated surgeries.

Discussing the operations, marketing, risk assessment, products and accounting methods of Poverty Africa, the paper recommends the following lessons for creating a strong health insurance portfolio:

• Adopting a careful and comprehensive approach towards calculating premiums;
• Offering incentives for providers to help prevent fraud;
• Basing product price on conservative estimates of total number of customers;
• Preparing a marketing plan and providing training and incentives to insurance sales agents;
• Formalizing clear guidelines with funders;
• Conducting professional risk assessment.