ILO's Impact Insurance Facility Annual Report 2014

The ILO's Impact Insurance Facility annual report highlights its achievements over the year. In 2014, the organization rebranded its activities to adopt a broader approach to enable insurance to fulfil its potential to achieve social and economic development objectives. To achieve the same, the organization undertook three main initiatives: facilitating market development in select countries, supporting and learning from innovative insurance approaches, and building the capacity of insurers and other stakeholders to be more impactful. Some key lessons that the organization learned in 2014 include: 

• Understand why and how a mobile phone is to be used;
• Insurance provides protection to clients;
• Partnership is a cornerstone of scale, but incentives should be aligned;
• Start simple, with partial, single and mandatory cover;
• Competition leads insurers to improve benefits and servicing;
• Insurance associations are well positioned to invest in insurance consumer education;
• Governments can use insurance as a vehicle to achieve public policy objectives;
• Claims experience can significantly influence clients’ understanding of and satisfaction with insurance;
• Governments can subsidize insurance in order to increase equity or reduce market inefficiencies;
• In order to increase access to insurance, providers must improve their enrolment, premium collection, and renewal processes.