Access to Insurance Initiative Newsletter 01/2018

Welcome to our monthly newsletter, where we update you on the work of the Initiative, inform you about events and publications, and share experiences and learning on inclusive insurance regulation and supervision across jurisdictions.

We have a new website! Visit us at www.a2ii.org, explore our knowledge hub, check out our upcoming events and ongoing projects and find what you need fast.

A taste of things to come: 2018 highlights

In 2018 the A2ii will continue its focus on implementation both at the global level, supporting the work of the IAIS Implementation Committee, as well as on the ground in the regions. Our main regional focus with continue to be Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia; however responding to supervisory demand, 2018 will also see us organizing events in the Middle East and North Africa as well as the Central European region.

Following an assessment of supervisory needs, we will continue to provide tailor-made capacity building support at a regional level. This will now include actuarial skills training for supervisors under our new five-year partnership signed in November 2017 between the IAIS, the International Actuarial Association and the A2ii.

Knowledge generation will also remain core to our agenda along with feeding the learnings from our work on the ground back into the development of new IAIS supervisory materials.

Following the launch of our Inclusive Insurance Innovation Lab at the end of last year we will also continue working with the country teams – Albania, Ghana, Kenya and Mongolia - to help them identify innovations in their market which have the potential to help support the growth of their domestic insurance market. Learnings from this exercise will then be disseminated both regionally and globally.

More specifically:

Continued support for IAIS standard setting and implementation work through:

• Development of an online portal for IAIS ICP self-assessment questionnaires enabling supervisors to get instant feedback on their compliance with individual ICPs;
• Publication of one proportionality in practice case studies;
• Participation in IAIS drafting groups under the Financial Inclusion Working Group;
• Supporting the development of regional implementation plans in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America; and
• Analysing the results of the recently conducted A2II/IAIS Review on Regulation and Supervision supporting Inclusive Insurance Markets. Providing participating regulatory authorities with individual responses as well as releasing an aggregate report.

Facilitate peer dialogue among, regional and global supervisory communities to strengthen understanding of the IAISs ICPs and share best practices on topical inclusive insurance issues:

• Hosting supervisor only global conference calls (‘Consultation Calls’) every 2 months in English, French and Spanish
• Support IAIS regional coordinators and local regional supervisory associations in organising regional supervisory break-out meetings

Building and sharing knowledge on InsurTech through facilitating three separate multi-stakeholder dialogue events in Africa, Latin America and Asia respectively through a series of ‘Consultative Forums’ organized on the topic.

Knowledge generation publications on topics including:

• Index based insurance;
• Inclusion of insurance in national financial inclusion strategies and
• Digital financial inclusion

Strengthening the A2iis foundations and long-term sustainability:

• Adoption of an updated Charter with an updated governance structure; and
• Start of a new funding term with an improved monitoring and evaluation system to support it.

If you would be interested in more information on our upcoming activities please refer to our website or send an email to the Secretariat at secretariat@a2ii.org

Upcoming Events

6th IAIS-A2ii Consultation Call on Index-Based Insurance

18 January 2018

On the first call of 2018 we will explore current practices with regards to index-based insurance.  On this call, we are delighted to have experts from the World Bank sharing their expertise on the topic followed by a number of insurance supervisors presenting their country case studies.

For more information, or to register for the call please follow this link.

IAIS-A2ii Regional Meeting for Sub-Saharan African insurance supervisors

30th and 31st of January 2018, Pretoria, South Africa

This meeting is intended to set the agenda for A2ii-IAIS capacity building activities in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2018. The activities that will be presented for discussion at the meeting are taken from the Regional Implementation Plan for the implementation of the IAIS Insurance Core Principles developed in 2017. 

The programme is jointly organised by the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii), the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) and will be hosted by the Financial Services Board (FSB). A meeting of Association of Africa Insurance Supervisory Authorities (AAISA) will be held along-side the AIS-A2ii Regional Meeting on 1 February 2018.

Innovation Lab International workshop

28 February – 2 March 2018, Accra, Ghana

The four country teams participating in the Inclusive Insurance Innovation Lab (Lab) will come together for what promises to be a highly interactive 3-day workshop. The workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to learn from their international peers while also gaining closer insights into their own domestic insurance markets. This workshop is the second of five workshops which are taking place between November 2017 and November 2018.

The Lab is a collaboration between the A2ii and the GIZ Global Leadership Academy. It started in November 2017 and will run for a 12 month period. Over this period 4 different multi-stakeholder country teams will first identify barriers to insurance market growth in their country before coming up with innovations to overcome these barriers. For more information please see A2ii website.

12th Consultative Forum

InsurTech: rising to the regulatory challenge.

Tuesday 20 March 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka

The 12th Consultative Forum on microinsurance regulation for insurance supervisory authorities, insurance practitioners and policymakers will address the consequences of rapid technological change in the inclusive insurance sector, exploring how regulators are responding to the need for oversight, consumer protection, stability in the business and financial systems while supporting and encouraging innovation.  

Discussions will focus on how various stakeholders — insurance supervisors and policymakers, private sector insurance, data and technical service providers — can cooperate and align their respective roles to achieve sustainability and scale while ensuring that clients receive fair treatment. The first of a three-part series, this Forum will be followed by two further Consultative Forums on the topic in Africa and Latin America.

The 12th Consultative Forum will take place on Tuesday 20 March in Colombo, Sri Lanka, alongside the Mutual Exchange Forum on Inclusive Insurance (MEFIN) Public Private Dialogue 5 (21-22 March 2018). Approximately 60 high-ranking representatives from insurance supervisory authorities, the industry and the public sector are expected to attend the event.

For more information, please see A2ii website.