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10.01.2013

4th Micro Insurance Round Table (MiRT) Meeting

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Singapore – The 4th Micro Insurance Round Table (MiRT) Meeting was convened from 6-10 April.

Singapore – The 4th Micro Insurance Round Table (MiRT) Meeting was convened from 6-10 April. The meeting was jointly organized by Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore and Risk Management Solutions (RMS), Inc., Californica, USA.

The main objective of the meeting was to discuss how to bring micro‐insurance to those in the lower rungs of the income pyramid in the developing countries, who are affected by natural disasters covering both geophysical and hydro meteorological hazards. Whilst as an innovative solution, insurance has been introduced yet both the extent and the rate of insurance penetration in this sector have been extremely low. This is due to low supply and demand, with sellers finding it unprofitable while buyers do not know much about risk transfer mechanisms.  At the same time potential of insurance demand and market is well received simply because, the micro‐insurance efforts around the world have multiplied over times yet this is still in piloting phase and unfortunately, very few catastrophe micro‐insurance products have been designed and implemented with robust technical, financial and sustainable attributes. The 4th MiRT was focused on looking and discussing pilot projects with those attributes. Through this round table conference at NTU, the Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management is in the process to forge a solution from the private sector. 

Micro-insurance is an upcoming measure for sustainable climate risk transfer mechanisms to build a public private partnerships model to cater adaptation needs. During the meeting there were several presentations and case studies from academia, industry and practitioners were made, however, a couple of pilots that came out and were discussed brilliantly were from Jakarta, Indonesia. This included a) Flood Index Insurance Card and b) A Dengue Fever Insurance cover. The conference gave useful insights to understand and improvise both public and private sector line of thoughts in insurance space. 

TAGS:

  • Micro Insurance
  • Namyang Technological University