Newsletters

Welcome! In this newsletter, we provide you with updates on the work of the A2ii, events and publications, and experiences and learning on inclusive insurance regulation and supervision across jurisdictions over the past month.

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Upcoming Events

Inclusive Insurance Training | 24 October - 16 November

The Inclusive Insurance Training programme is offered in partnership with the Toronto Centre and IAIS. It will take place over 4 days from 7-16 November 2023, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in English. 

The training programme is aimed at entry- to mid-level insurance supervisors from the Asia-Pacific region. 

The training is offered at no cost to insurance supervisors; however, places will be limited. We will accept approximately 2 supervisors per jurisdiction. 
   
Click here for more information. The deadline has been extended - apply by 10 October.

 Capacity building for insurance supervisors: leveraging actuarial skills | 21 - 30 November 

We are pleased to invite you to the virtual training “Capacity building for insurance supervisors: leveraging actuarial skills”, organised by the International Actuarial Association (IAA), the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) and the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii). 

This training targets supervisors from Sub-Saharan Africa and Caribbean. It aims at strengthening the understanding and implementation of the actuarial concepts and tools necessary to support effective insurance supervision and regulation.  

The approach of this training will be on learning principles, while being as simple and practical as possible. After a mandatory onboarding on 31 October, the training takes place from 21 to 30 November 2023, with a combination of online self-paced modules and live sessions, which include a range of lecture-based sessions, case studies, breakout sessions and quizzes. Click here for more information and to register. 

18th Consultative Forum | 23 October, Accra, Ghana

About

The devastating impact of climate change has already become a reality for many, and even more the most vulnerable societies and households. Addressing the widening protection gaps requires close collaboration between the public and private sector. Thus, bringing together key stakeholders to share their knowledge and experience in addressing climate change related risks is more important than ever.   

The Consultative Forum 2023 will gather representatives of international initiatives, the insurance industry, as well as policymakers and supervisors to jointly identify best practices, challenges, and opportunities for developing and implementing insurance solutions that can promote financial resilience in the face of climate change and natural disaster.  

What are the key themes? 

The forum will start by looking at global initiatives like the Global Shield against Climate Risks and discuss the IAIS’ most recent work on NatCat Protection Gaps and supervisory approaches to help closing existing protection gaps. In addition, industry representatives will highlight the impact of new products and innovative services they have been developing to buffer the impact of climate change.  A special focus will be put on the topic of risk modelling since one of the key elements for the insurance industry, but also for policymakers and other decision-makers is quantifying risks arising from natural catastrophes. In the light of climate change, risk modelling becomes more challenging as relying on historical data is no longer enough. For this reason, the session on risk modelling during the CF will be complemented by a half-day online training event in November for supervisors to deepen their knowledge on the topic.  

The Consultative Forum 2023 will take place in the afternoon of Monday, 23 October. To attend the Consultative Forum, you have to be registered for the International Conference on Inclusive Insurance. For the agenda and more information, visit our website.   

A2ii Parallel Session at the ICII 2023: Using data to close the gender protection gap – Supervisory and policy perspectives | 25 October

A2ii will be hosting a parallel session at the International Conference on Inclusive Insurance in Accra, Ghana. The session “Using data to close the gender protection gap – Supervisory and policy perspectives” will take place on 25 October from 9:00 - 10:30 am local time.  

Many stakeholders in the insurance industry, including regulators and supervisors, express their commitment to treat women and men as equal. However, gender-neutral approaches to insurance, though well-intended, create a disproportionate impact on women. Through pre-existing biases women are being unintentionally left behind with their specific needs not being considered. Without sufficient knowledge about the actual magnitude and nature of gender protection gaps, there cannot be gender equality.  

The A2ii session on Gender will consist of a diverse panel of supervisory and industry representatives discussing, first lessons from the ongoing FeMa-Meter Pilot, a toolkit that supports sex-disaggregated data collection, as well as some of the following questions:  

• Where are the gender data gaps and how do they contribute to women’s financial exclusion? 
• What kind of data would be needed and how would it need to be aggregated, analysed and used to address the gender protection gaps? 
• What are good practices in collecting this data and how can they be scaled up? 

ACAPS-CMA Annual Joint Seminar for the MENA Region – Inclusive Insurance and Digitalisation | 25-26 October | Rabat, Morocco 

On 25-26 October, the Supervisory Authority of Insurance and Social Welfare (ACAPS - Kingdom of Morocco) and the Capital Market Authority (CMA - Sultanate of Oman) are co-organising their second regional in-person seminar on “iInclusive Insurance and Digitalisation” in Rabat.  This regional event will be organised in partnership with the IAIS and A2ii, and It will be an opportunity for MENA supervisors to discuss various issues relevant to the topic.  Insurance supervisors from the MENA region are encouraged to register for this event.   

Recent events

Dialogue with Asian Supervisors | 5 September  

A2ii recently conducted an online “Dialogue with Asian Supervisors” for the Nepal Insurance Authority (NIA) on 5 September 2023.  The dialogue was aimed at providing the NIA and Nepalese insurance companies with fresh perspectives and insights on how other Asian insurance supervisors were able to develop their microinsurance sectors through more enabling regulatory measures, particularly in the areas of product and market development.  On hand to share their respective microinsurance journeys and experiences were Ms. Shazia Rehman, Joint Director of the Insurance Policy Regulation and Development Department of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and Mr. Adrian Irshadi Siregar, Division Head of Development for Insurance, Guarantee, and Pension Fund of the Indonesia Financial Services Authority (OJK). 
 
More than 40 participants took part in the Dialogue, the second activity under A2ii’s “Follow-up In-country Collaboration with the Nepal Insurance Authority (NIA) on Product Development for Microinsurance Products”.   

Financial Inclusion Forum (FIF) | 12-13 September, Ljubljana, Slovenia 

The A2ii and IAIS held this year's in-person Financial Inclusion Forum (FIF) meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, hosted by AZN, the Insurance Supervision Agency of Slovenia. 

The first day of the meeting began with welcome remarks from Tomás Soley, chair of the FIF and General Superintendent of SUGESE, Gorazd Čibej, Managing Director at the Insurance Supervision Agency of Slovenia, and Hanne van Voorden, IAIS Head of Supervisory Practices and Operations. 
  
Krishnan Narasimhan from UNCDF gave a presentation on digital innovation in inclusive insurance in Pacific Small island developing states, followed by Chris Brown from Bermuda Monetary Authority on proportionate approaches to anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism in inclusive insurance. After this, members shared learnings on AML/CDT in a tour de table. 

This was followed by a well-received session on Mystery Shopping, with the Slovakia country experience presented by Julia Čillíková from the National Bank of Slovakia, then a members’ round table on complaints handling and conduct of business in inclusive insurance. 
  
The second day began with three presentations on Insurance for MSMEs, from Marco Traversa, EIOPA, Thomas Devasia, IRDAI, and Jeremy Gray, CENFRI, with Q&A. FIF members then gave updates on the status of insurance for MSMEs in their jurisdictions. Next, Mojca Rome, Insurance Supervision Agency of Slovenia, presented on ESG in insurance supervision. After other updates, FIF members gave initial input for the 2024 workplace. 
  
This was the second time that FIF members had the opportunity to meet in person, after last year's joint FIF Plenary-ASSAL regional seminar in Costa Rica. 

A2ii-IAIS Public Dialogue on Climate Change and Catastrophe Risk Modelling | 14 September 

The last A2ii-IAIS Public Dialogue took place on 14 September virtually. During this session, Hanne van Voorden, Head of Supervisory Practices and Operations at the IAIS, started by presenting the work that the IAIS has been doing on climate risk, particularly undertaking analysis to understand how climate change impacts the insurance sector and financial stability, promoting a global supervisory response to climate change and assisting in capacity building initiatives with partners. Hanne also touched on the IAIS approach to data and the outcomes of the IAIS Global Monitoring Exercise. 
 
Following Hanne’s presentation was a panel discussion moderated by Miroslav Petkov, Senior Policy Advisor at the IAIS. This discussion focused on the latest developments and applications of climate data, the limitations and challenges of using this data, and the ways in which collaboration between stakeholders can improve the modelling of natural catastrophes and address protection gaps. The panellists were Nick Moody, Coordinator of the IDF Risk Modelling Steering Group and Private Sector Co-lead of the Global Risk Modelling Alliance at the Insurance Development Forum, Jerry Skees, Founder and Executive Director of Global Parametrics, Kara Voss, Climate Finance Specialist at the California Department of Insurance, Erickson H. Balmes, Deputy Commissioner at the Insurance Commission of Philippines and Pujan Dhumel, Director of Microinsurance at the Nepal Insurance Authority.  
 
The recording of this dialogue is available on the A2ii website.  

Publications

Second Inclusive Insurance Innovation Lab 2020-2021 - Final Report published 

The second Inclusive Insurance Innovation Lab (iii-lab) took place from March 2020 to November 2021, bringing together a broad range of stakeholders of the inclusive insurance sector from four participating countries: Argentina, India, Morocco, and Rwanda.  Over 50 participants engaged in dialogue and mutual learning and developed innovative solutions to increase uptake of insurance amongst vulnerable people and businesses by addressing the question: how can we develop our insurance markets? 

The second iii-lab had been planned as a face-to-face process with three national and three international workshops spread over 18 months. However, the programme had to be adapted due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to most of the programme being conducted online and extended to 20 months. Still, the country team’s flexibility and patience allowed them to develop multiple prototypes, create lasting relationships, and carry on as leaders, advocates, and innovators for inclusive insurance within their jurisdiction. 

This report looks back at the results and long-term impact of the second iii-lab one-and-a-half years after its closing. It is based on insights from interviews with iii-lab participants at regular intervals after the programme ended.  
 
Download the report to learn more about second iii-lab's results. For more information, see the iii-lab 2 site.   

Useful Tools on Our Website

Inclusive Insurance Regulations Map

The interactive map incorporates data about existing inclusive insurance regulation and regulation which supports inclusive insurance sourced through A2ii's research, work and interaction with supervisory authorities worldwide. 

ICP Self-assessment Tool

The tool is intended to help supervisors assess the level of observance of the Insurance Core Principles (ICPs).

 Supervisory KPIs Lexicon

Interactive, searchable directory of KPIs for insurance supervisors across four pillars: prudential soundness, market conduct, insurance market development and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Insurance and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The SDG pages include resources on the importance and the role of insurance across nine SDGs: 01 No Poverty, 10 Reduced Inequalities, 02 Zero Hunger, 03 Good Health and Well-being, 05 Gender Equality, 08 Decent Work and Economic Growth, 09 Industry Innovation and Infrastructure, 13 Climate Change and 17 Partnerships for the Goals.