International Cooperative and
Mutual Insurance Federation

Prosper sums up in a single word what all cooperative and mutual insurers are trying to help their member owners achieve. While providing affordable and accessible insurance protections is one of the original hallmarks of our model, cooperative and mutual insurers are doing so much more to help their member owners thrive and prosper. Let’s take a moment to explore the cooperative and mutual insurers’ role in microinsurance and beyond.

While their roots can be traced from the Middle Ages through the Industrial Revolution, the earliest formal cooperative and mutual insurers have been around since the 1860s. While today they include everything from giant multinational organisations serving millions to small organisations serving local populations – all cooperative and mutual insurers were originally born to fulfil a need for affordable and accessible financial protection where there was none to be had. Economists would call this a collective response to a market failure. By self-organising and forming their own insurance company, cooperatives and mutuals were able to overcome local market failures by offering financial protections members needed at a price they could afford. So, although the word “microinsurance” is of recent coinage, the idea of providing affordable and accessible insurance protections has been part of cooperative and mutual insurers’ very DNA for over 150 years.