From 23 to 24 February 2017, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii) and Inter-African Conference on Insurance Markets (CIMA) hosted the first Mobile Insurance Conference in Douala, Cameroon. It was supported by BMZ, DGIS, Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSD Africa), UK Aid and Munich Re Foundation.

Our Managing Director and Founder   Doubell Chamberlain, along with Technical Director Christine Hougaard and Mia Thom attended.

The conference brought together one hundred participants from 26 countries across the African continent for two days of intensive discussions on how to overcome barriers and enhance access to insurance for low-income populations through the use of mobile technologies. Representatives from insurance, telecommunications and payment systems regulatory authorities, as well as insurers, mobile network operators, technical service providers and development organisations actively considered the roles, activities, current regulatory provisions and future regulatory needs in mobile insurance, as well as in innovation and the use of digital technology more broadly.

Three main themes emerged from the discussions:

• CIMA is the regional insurance regulatory body in West and Central Africa – made up of the following French-speaking countries Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Equatorial, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Togo – whose objective is to work towards the establishment of a single insurance market.
• The advent of technology has introduced a range of new players, notably technical service providers, and the question remains how to effectively supervise these new players while keeping the consumer experience positive. M-insurance cuts across multiple laws, regulations and authorities that extend beyond the insurance sector, such as payments systems and telecommunications. This overlap creates the need for cooperation, the models for which are still new and growing.
• The business model of m-insurance has been rapidly developing and continues to evolve. This development has left some open questions on how and when to approach aspects such as the use of airtime for payment, appropriate use of consumer data, regulation of new institutions in the value chain, and defining aspects of the business model in regulation.