The African Insurance Organisation, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii) and the Microinsurance Network (MIN) are co-hosting the 13th Consultative Forum 2018 on Mobile Insurance and InsurTech: rising to the regulatory challenge on the afternoon of Wednesday 9 May and the morning of Thursday 10 May 2018.
Mia Thom, technical director at Cenfri, will present at the Consultative Forum on the findings from two research projects conducted under Cenfri and FSD Africa’s Risk, Remittances and Integrity programme.
The first is from the findings from the Role of Insurtech in overcoming challenges in microinsurance. This findings are based on Cenfri’s insurtech tracker (a database with now over 180 insurtech initiatives operating in emerging markets), which was recently updated. Results from the update suggest that technology-enabled partnerships such as BIMA and MicroEnsure were able to replicate their models in additional countries, which suggests successful business models. Furthermore, Brazil is a particularly fast-growing market in terms of insurtechs, with many new initiatives founded over the past two years. On-demand insurance products are gaining momentum in emerging markets, which reflects the growth of the on-demand economy. Lastly, the number of digital platforms that assist customers with price comparison and broker services has increased at a higher rate than any other category. The increasing sophistication of AI and machine-learning technology paved the way for useful chatbots for sales and claims processing.
- Find the insurtech tracker here.
- Follow the panel live here.
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The second is from our study on Regulating for innovation. The study unpacks approaches to regulating for innovation, with a particular focus on the concept of the sandbox principle. Drawing on a number of country examples, the study explores the potential benefits, as well as the prerequisites and considerations required by regulators to effectively implement approaches (like sandboxes) to responsibly encourage innovation within their markets.
Additionally, Stefanie Zinsmeyer from A2ii will be presenting on the role of insurance regulators in dealing with consumer data protection risks. This is based on a study A2ii is conducting in collaboration with Cenfri and FSDA Africa under the Risk, Remittances and Integrity programme.
Technological developments and increasing connectivity have enabled businesses to collect, store and use increasing amounts of consumer data to design products suited to consumers’ individual needs and to target them with those.
The insurance industry is no exception. New datasets are being leveraged to more accurately price risk, better understand consumers’ needs, design better products, and better monitor and reduce the incidence and cost of fraud. The implication is that embracing the use of new datasets has the potential to substantively increase insurance inclusion.
However, with this new potential comes new risks, and insurance regulators are often ill-equipped to understand and deal with them. What makes it even more challenging for insurance regulators is the fact that data protection regulation in most jurisdictions falls under the mandate of the communications or data regulator.
This project is conducted with the A2ii and aims to unpack and define the different data-related risks within inclusive insurance, explore the consumer protection issues that arise, consult supervisors from different regions on their experiences and approaches, and generate practical insights to inform guidance to regulators on how to deal with these emerging risks.
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