Big changes are on the horizon for the global microinsurance sector.

“Microinsurance, which currently provides coverage for 500 million people, could pass the 1 billion mark by the end of the decade,” says Craig Churchill, Chair of the Microinsurance Network and Head of the ILO’s Microinsurance Innovation Facility.

This boom in coverage means that opportunities for the global re-insurance sector could be huge. It could also mean major changes across a variety of other sectors as well.

Finding a way to make this impressive growth happen in a sustainable way will be the challenge for global insurers and reinsurers over the next several years.

“The expansion of the sector is being facilitated by the emergence of alternative distribution channels and public-private partnerships, the adoption of technological innovations as well as an increased awareness amongst insurance companies of the business case for microinsurance,” commented Eugenio Velasques from Bradesco Seguros e Previdência, one of the leading insurance companies in Brazil.

To read more about microinsurance penetration, check out this article.

Microinsurance offers entrepreneurs in poor countries protection against the economic aftermath of severe natural catastrophes. Photo: (Mercy Corps)