EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Insuring the Low-Income Market: Challenges and Solutions for Commercial Insurers

Craig Churchill ()
Additional contact information
Craig Churchill: International Labour Organization, Social Finance Programme, Employment Sector, 4, rte des Morillons, Geneva 22 CH 1211, Switzerland.

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, 2007, vol. 32, issue 3, 412 pages

Abstract: In many developing countries, commercial insurers are beginning to become interested in serving the low-income market by providing microinsurance. To do so, they have to overcome both operational and regulatory obstacles. Ironically, certain regulations actually give commercial insurers an advantage in serving the low-income market, by restricting competition from specialized microinsurance companies. However, this opportunity is unlikely to last indefinitely. Commercial insurers that are keen to reach out to new markets, such as the huge volume of low-income people in many countries, would be wise to move quickly to overcome key operational issues. In particular, insurers need to recognize that microinsurance is not just existing products with smaller insured sums, but rather requires a significantly different approach from conventional insurance. Key starting points include (a) improving the insurer's familiarity with the preferences and behavior of poor persons, and (b) educating the market about insurance to create low-income consumers. The Geneva Papers (2007) 32, 401–412. doi:10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510132

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/gpp/journal/v32/n3/pdf/2510132a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/gpp/journal/v32/n3/full/2510132a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:32:y:2007:i:3:p:401-412

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/finance/journal/41288/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice is currently edited by Christophe Courbage

More articles in The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice from Palgrave Macmillan, The Geneva Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:32:y:2007:i:3:p:401-412