South Africa has one of the most innovative insurance markets in the world. It is also considered one of the leading microinsurance jurisdictions. Commercial insurers have reached significant penetration in the low-income market, albeit largely through funeral and credit life insurance.

FinMark Trust therefore commissioned Cenfri to provide an update on innovative micoinsurance models and products and the broad lessons emanating from their innovation experiences. Cenfri produced a synthesis note, considers the cross-cutting lessons which can be drawn from the above four case studies’ successes and failures.

Below, we include four documents which Cenfri produced for the FinMark Trust as part of the microinsurance innovation review. These four documents are case studies on new microinsurance models, as well as updates on models that were covered in earlier FinMark research. The main focus of the case studies is on distribution, an area that has seen particular innovation, but they also consider product innovation as it is closely linked to the nature of the distribution model.