Tsutomu Matsubara (AOA):

Good morning, and good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. Welcome, and thank you very much for joining the AOA webinar today. Today’s general guide, the theme of this webinar is SDGs series 1, one introduction, and we have wonderful speakers today. So now let’s get started. First of all. AOA chair, Mr. Fumio Yanai (President of Zenkyoren, Japan) to give an opening address in Japanese.

Fumio Yanai:

I would like to say a few words at the opening. Thank you very much for many people’s participation from nine countries around the world today. I would also like to thank you again for your cooperation with the questionnaire related to this event. Now recently in Japan we don’t pass a day without seeing a word SDGs and its colorful icon on TV and newspapers.SDGs is also taken up as a topic of the most interest in the questionnaire survey conducted following the previous webinar. I feel the high level of public interest -in SDGs. As many people probably know, SDGs is a Sustainable Development Goal set up at the United Nations General Assembly to realize a sustainable world by 2030. And advocates the realization of society of “Leave No One Behind”. Many companies and organizations around the world are now integrating SDGs into their businesses and implementing a variety of initiatives to enhance corporate value by contributing to SDGs.

Tsutomu Matsubara (AOA):

On the other hand, our sector which has the philosophy of mutual aid, has been developing business in each country and community to realize a society of “Leave No One Behind” exactly as the same of SDGs.

Fumio Yanai:

This philosophy and activities have been succeeded and developed as a matter of course in our mutual sector for more than 100 years, whereas the United Nations set SDGs just recently. Nevertheless, there is a fact that our sector is something like “Humble” and we have not sufficiently disseminated information of our activities which we regard as nothing special in spite of our existence being in line with SDGs philosophy. In order to ensure that society firmly recognizes our values and we ourselves continue to be sustainable, I think that we are now in a time when we should understand a yardstick of SDGs and through its yardstick gain public recognition of our activities and show that we are able to contribute to solving various social issues now as well as in the future. It is a great pleasure to be able to hold this webinar today where we can learn international trends about SDGs these days. Ms Alicia Montoya and Ms Vicci Xi Fan of Swiss Re Institute, and Jun Jay E. Perez of RIMANSI for undertaking the panels in the busy schedule.

I look forward to sharing meaningful and enjoyable time with you all through the webinar. Please enjoy your participation till the end.

Tsutomu Matsubara (AOA):

So before moving to the three presentation, there is a report from AOA executive secretary about the result of the members survey on SDGs.

Hiroko Kowada (AOA):

Hello everyone. It’s a good to see you here. I’m the executive secretary of AOA prior today to webinar now. We conducted questioned my years, hobby on SGDs four members in May. Thank you for your cooperation. We received over half deprived from members that total eight countries and 25 members. Thank you very much. In here, I drive to share with you the result of Saba and one employee understanding their stress over members interest and option for as they did before the panel discussion. So, okay. Please take a quick look at the thrive of which shows that is out of that survey. The first question is which of the four is grossly dedicated to your organization’s initiatives. Multiple answer. This is a multiple aren’t faced at all. The most common one was number 3, a good health, and number 1, number 4, 5, 8, stacking 17th, or also choosing by many members. The next slide. Show where’s the member have any discussion, what action plans for, in their organizations. I do. As you can see that 56% are yes. So let’s take a look at the details of this 56%.

The progress can be divided into five stages. Stage one is understanding and Stage two is defining priorities and three is setting goals. And four is that interesting is the integrating into business. And five is reporting to stakeholders. As you can see from this pie chart, the top of pink and orange, I mean, total eight members are already integrating the SDGs into the ad business. This graph shows the members priority goals. The number three health is with Harris is the highest one and next it’s number 13 prime and option. And the number eight, this didn’t work and it had been sustainable communities, et cetera, that compared to the graph I showed you, aria, you can see that goals that can be sold through there. Our main business easiness having constant, right?

We also ask them about their current and future options for the SDGs. There are strike three change to India priorities in present and in future, the rest question was for or despondent. We asked that which items of case studies would you like to see the webinar? One of the most notable point is team primate action is high as number three, that good helps. So we dragged the carry out wave in Arizona. after August to deflect, beat men, both boys. So now we have shared that result of the father. So let’s move on to that today. It’s made. Thank you very much. I’ll make,

Thank you. Thank you very much from now on. I want your handover to cover today’s moderator. Many people don’t really know he has that auto experience in the insurance field. He’s now a advisor to the commissioner or Japan financial service agencies and the professor Joe to university graduate school of management, Tokyo university, graduate school of public policy.

Tsutomu Matsubara (AOA)::

Thank you. good. Good, good afternoon, everybody. So now we are going to kick off a panel discussion. So what we are going to do is we have four panelists including myself also just briefly introduce the lady first. So Alicia Montoya from the Swiss Re and the head of the research of commercialization unit of Swiss re Institute and the Vicci Xi Fan, Business Analyst, Research Commercialization Unit, Swiss Re Institute; also Jun Jay Perez from the Philippines, he is the executive director of the RIMANSI.

So, and myself, or we’ll have a panel discussion. And just for the structure of this discussion, first, each of us has around 15 or maximum 20 minutes of introductory speech. And then we have a panel discussion among ourselves and then invite Q and a session from all participants. So if you are interested in our asking, if you’re interested in asking questions, please feel free to send you a question from Q1 day or chat function so that we can catch up on your questions and include, or the last part of Q and a, or our panel discussion part. So with that, just to, I will kick off or my part with the lice or just, I will share my slice.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

So I’m going to discuss systemic risk. And the SDGs, the background of this issue is a naturally as a Hiroko son explained that the SDG is very much of a menace of participants interests. And just to, to see that is the disease a little bit of a step, a step back, and the focus on what does it mean from the risk perspective. And therefore I just put or systemic risk issue first and see SDGs from the systemic risk point of view. So what more concise specifically, I’m going to discuss first or systemic risks, manifestation of systemic risk and then features characters of systemic risk. And then as the GS impacted by those systemic risk manifestation and what should we do? We mean, so a co-operative and the mutuals should do, and the approach to fulfill its our mission, meaning that the co-operative and the mutual’s mission.

So first, first of all, the systemic risk issue, manifestation of systemic risk, you remember 2008, but Lehman crisis just, you know, or breakout financial crisis. And during that time, myself and the financial regulators around the world discussed very much or financial crisis risk related to systemic concern. And we thought that that this is the significant risk or related to system itself financial system and the global economic system. And now after COVID of, you know, breaking out, we really think that that this financial systemic risk is only one of the systemic risks and not to that, the pandemic is a big systemic systemic risk climate change, income gaps, and potentially like cyber risks could be a very systemic risk too. So just, I want to emphasize, or that the systemic risk is a huge issue that this world is facing and it’s worthwhile to understand what it is and how it should deal with this risk itself.

And the features of systemic risk is naturally, first of all, it’s a significant negative impact on the economy economy or global economy and the huge impact on the world all over the world and the interconnectedness interconnectedness between the or interconnected between the sectors. So it’s not only a very constrained risk, but it’s very much linked with other parts of the world or other sector of the world and not day like, you know, we can see a COVID case of financial crisis. And so climate re risks, to some extent it’s unpredictable, how big that impact is and how evolve in the future. And the one issue that Komen to the systemic risk and the, we definitely need some in-depth consideration is externality externality. The definition is as it’s written here, damage caused by somebodies activities for which it does not pay. In other words, somebody caused damage, but this, somebody does not pay for, you know, compensation to address this damage.

You know, a typical example is now for example, climate change CO2 or carbon emission is a big cause of climate change. But those who are, who have a huge emission of common carbon to not pay that the damage, for example, you know, this coal industry to not pay their damage or, you know, like each individual or driving a car emits so much CO2, but they do not pay those emissions. So, and this concept of externalities is extremely important to understand systemic risk, not only climate systemic risk financial financial crisis, systemic risk is again the same large, so-called too big to fail financial institution because financial crisis. So there’s a systemic risk concern, but they do not pay the huge damage on the economy. So again, this externality issues. And also when we understand these externalities a little bit wider context, for example, pandemics, pandemics people, the economy itself, each or cooperation, individual troubles so much around the world, the good old boy economy itself.

Now economy is very much internationalized. So each individual corporation or individual act international, they’re all very much moving around and that caused this huge pandemic issues. At least, you know, this COVID-19 was so much impact because of this economic activity, very much global and connected, but individual or corporation who are active globally to not pay. So this is again, externality issues and income gap, for example, is again, each individual who contribute or each corporation who contribute to this sort of economic gap or do not pay the gap economic gap issue or income gap or poverty issues and so on. So those issues we, we can interpret this way, that systemic risk externality is a very important concept to understand. And that’s, I will come back to this issue when we discuss a little bit farther down. So let’s move on to that. Also for some SDG is impacted by the systemic risk manifestation, naturally no poverty issue that a hunger, good health and wellbeing, quality, quality education, clean water and sanitation, decent work, economic growth, reducing inequality, or these STDs impacted by a system of risk manifestation, a systemic risk. I explained like, you know, financial crisis income gap issue, climate change, pandemics, all those issues naturally related to these SDGs.

So let’s move on and what should we do now? We hear me is co-operative and, and also mutuals. And so first of all, and also ourselves too, you know, not don’t relate it to corporate the mutuals, but ourselves. So first of all, as I said, externality is applied to everybody and the, any cooperation. So we have to pay the prices or economically speaking, we have to contribute to society and people as not solely to our own benefit or profit, that’s a very important foundation of, you know, it’s not for the, how, how do you say contribute to the society for good intention? This is an obligation because we contribute to the sort of Bynum or contribute to systemic risk manifestation. Therefore we should contribute to address that the manifestation, you know, so that that’s a more important directory dated ourselves and our society. It’s not for good, only Goodwill, but it’s our obligation, our responsibility to do that.

I just to move a little bit farther. So you just uncooperative the mission of VHS and the cooperative, you know, and I said at the opening speech, he clearly mentioned it’s contributed to the people in the community. This is the mission of the mutuals and the co-operative. And that’s a sort of a red on that today. Reason of existence of mutuals and the corporates, and that’s from the beginning a hundred years ago, they have this mutual as a corporate, we have this mission and the corporate thing, and in the context of SDGs and in the context of systemic risk, we should reemphasize the importance of this mission when we discuss mutuals and the co-operatives role in the society. So what should the mutuals and cooperatives to naturally fulfill its mission and make it totally clear that it’s a mutual and the co-operative and all people working for mutuals and cooperatives is totally their responsibility to fulfill its mission and the possible approach to fulfill its mission a little bit more concretely, what mutuals uncooperative should do.

First of all, implode or fulfilling SDG so-so sustainable development goals. That’s very much linked with the mutuals and cooperatives mission. And second, I agree with this is more approach to reach or these SDGs sustainable development goals. I agree with key indicators without indicators, we cannot assess. So we, first of all, agree, key indicators of our SDGs and set concrete goals and plan for their achievement. So one set indicators, we just set goals step-by-step to reach the final goal and then assess, assess implementation, or how much we already read, reach towards the goal. And the, we should assess the sort of know, or the current stage of the achievement level to the goal and disclosed result so that people understand where we are, not only the person who act on that, the goal, but also everybody. So that transparency is very important to enhance of fulfilling this goal.

And in order to achieve or this, you know, assessment, it’s very important to make a compatibility and the quantification, this is a little bit technical issue, but anyway, this, this is a good segue to, or at least in the sheets presentation, we have to make it comparable and we have to make it come one quantifiable. Otherwise it’s a sort of a not very philosophical and nobody can not understand where, how much we have reached towards the goal and pay attention to three hours or there you have it, you know, detail graduation, but the report risk assessment and return. First of all, report with data transparent to make clear, or the older sort of where we are and the risk assessment of we have to assess each risk clearly and return in terms of financial return. This is also important, particularly for the financial sector and those issues.

We help particularly financial sectors pay attention and take into account regulatory development, naturally corporate mutuals. And so financial industries are very much con regulated, regulated entity. So we should understand very much reg regulatory approach in order to promote this, you know, achieving the final goal of STGs or mission of sustainability and also contribute to society and the people issues. And just briefly, I mentioned, what’s going on in the current development, in the global scale, in the regulatory uploads, just the G seven concluded few days ago that transparency should disclosure is issue is TCFD. Issue is a mandatory, it’s going to be a mandatory. So it’s a very strong how they say approach disclosure is a foundation and then scenario testing and supervisory review. So forth pillar to issue is now also, or moving, evolving very rapidly. So, and the scenario testing also helps to quantify quantification has also compatibility of, you know, risk issue and then regulatory capital.

That’s a very strong impact on the regular, you know, financial institutions put on sort of the amount of the capital they should all put aside. So that there’s a strong incentive that the whole financial corporation will pay attention to those risks. So in short, those issue is a one suggestion approach to promote or SDGs and also to promote or the, or to fulfill the mission of co-operative and mutuals. So I stop here and just to, before turning to the next two speakers, I just invite any questions among panelists or AOS separated yet about my presentation. Okay.

Tsutomu Matsubara (AOA):

Yes. Hi, thank you for your presentation. May maybe question the weak area of SDGs makes most progressives and how,

Yoshihiro Kawai:

Okay, good. Thank you for that question. So SDGs is a 17 goals and that covers wide range of issues. And I pointed out for example, health issue, perhaps wellbeing, water issue, and of course climate change and poverty reduction. And so on, all those issues are covered by SDGs, but this in the context of systemic risk and the assessment on the so, well, I think everybody understands well that climate change is a forefront or SDG related issues that, you know, we can take that, that roads. So in other words, this climate change or approach can be used as a sort of example, exemplary example, to follow other SDGs, such as a pandemic issues or poverty reduction or other issues. So I think climate change is a current front runner of SDGs dealing with this kind of risk it. Yeah. Are there any other questions

Tsutomu Matsubara (AOA):

And how is that? Are we, we get, are some questions from the audience. Could you check the Q and a, okay.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

Yes. So hope it’s pandemic made for families pushed down in SDG. It is right that the work for the health health and the health insurance or poor families by, by way of promotion and protective law of each organizations. Yeah. That’s, I assume this is rather common. And naturally when we think about the role of a financial secretary, particularly co-operative on the wheelchairs. Now we are shifting more on the more preventive measures or, you know, risk reduction measures, not only protection I pay claims or, you know, or benefit. So I really think that Peter’s comment is very relevant or in the context of COVID as well as climate change and the others too.

And he also mentioned that I believe that the more ground action are needed than just sharing views alone. Definitely round action is extremely important and also in order to make ground action, what I, what I explained is a international coordination. Cooperation is very important to adjust, to enhance that reduction, to sit there, eat sort of overall view and the first the important issues, and then each country, each corporation, each individual takes action. So it has to be cascade down, not only talking about principles, but the ground action is definitely a critical or most important part of the whole picture. Thank you. So I think, thank you. That’s I think I covered the question. So shall, shall we move on to do the next part? So, so she, and this year now.

Tsutomu Matsubara (AOA):

Well, she and Alicia now, I think I had a good segue to your presentation.

Alicia Montoya:

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Alicia Montoya. I work at the Swiss Re Institute together with Xi and we have been working to support the industry in its path towards sustainability. And I have to commend Kwaizan for outlining the key issues that we face and I’m an economist. So I very much like the angle about externalities, because until now, sustainability has been very much looked at by cherry picking ESG criteria that companies would choose. But of course, that doesn’t cover the full impact of what our business does to the economy, to society and to the environment. And so 2015 was a great, great year where the world agreed two things. One was the Paris accord, where we agreed to limit emissions. The other one were the UN SDGs. And so at Swiss Re Institute, we are working to quantify the impact across all direct underlying and operational activities so that we can start moving and progressing towards a sustainable economy, society, and planet.

And I would like to highlight what was said about comparability and quantification, because this is very important. There are many different standards, there are many ways to measure, but there has never been a way to quantify underwriting impact against the SDGs. And so today we’re very proud to present the SDG calculator, which is Swiss Re Institute’s response in order to start quantifying insurance SDG impact, and then setting the baseline so that we can then start progressing towards a more sustainable business.

And so we are working with unit PSI, which is the Principles for Sustainable Insurance team in order to define industry specific SDG definitions, indicators to measure them. And my colleague Zi, will tell us all about that. And get the industry together around what do the UN SDGs mean for insurers and mutuals so that we can start progressing towards this new sustainable future. And provide a comprehensive framework that enables mutuals and insurers to objectively measure, accurately track, and very important credibly report on sustainability progress. And I highlight that because there is not a day that goes by these days where there isn’t a company getting sued by its shareholders, by society because they are not complying to our agreed global goals. So as Corizon very well highlighted, the regulatory pressure is rising quickly, and companies need to be able to quantify credibly, and start reporting transparently in order to meet their role as providers, in this case, mutual providers of protection and prevention services.

So we’re very proud to be working with ICMIF. ICMIF is a strategic partner for us, we see our purpose is very much aligned. So Swiss Re’s purpose is to make the world more resilient. And ICMIF’s purpose is very much to protect the wellbeing of its members and policy holders. And so we saw a natural alignment. And it’s highlighted in things like our focus on shifting from protection to prevention. And this is very important because when we think about the impact that we can have, we see that prevention and the holistic kind of protection and prevention offering is increasingly necessary and valuable to members and policy holders in order to reduce and prevent as many risks as possible. And then better manage the risks that cannot be avoided and then bounce back as quickly as possible for the risks that can be avoided.

And so we saw this natural alignment of these two organizations, and we’re very proud to be working on two R&D pilots with the cooperators in Canada and Sancor Seguros in Argentina. And we hope that after this webinar, many of the AOA members will also want to join. And it’s important that we all get behind this because what we want to do is we want to come to a common set of definitions, narratives, and metrics that we can all work towards so that we can achieve a rough industry consensus in terms of some of the impacts and attributions that we put into the tool. And that we all move together in this common framework and narrative. And so we are very, very proud to be working with ICMIF. And we would love for all the ICMIF members to use this tool when we launch later this year.

And I would like to just highlight one thing, we have been so impressed with the level. It’s easy to talk about sustainability, everybody’s talking about sustainability, but what I have been very impressed with ICMIF, and its members is the level of development of the thinking and approaches and the level of commitment to make it happen. And the quantification of the impact is so important. And so I’m very proud to be working with ICMIF group, the global organization, AOA, and its subsidiaries. And every member in ICMIF that will hopefully join because we have a very common purpose and a very strong need across the world to work together towards finding pathways, to get to our common goals. Thank you.

So we talked about creating transparency and we talked about disclosure and regulatory compliance. I think what’s really important to highlight here is that achieving the SDGs is a long-term commitment. It’s something that we need to embark on now, and we need to work together towards, in order to get to a common understanding as to what the tools are for mutuals and insurers to progress towards the SDGs. And in this collective effort, achieve industry consensus, standards, and targets for our industry. And it’s important that we start shifting from bottom-up ESG criteria to comprehensive SDG impact. And it’s interesting to see that we are all on this journey and Swiss Re Institute is very much looking forward to working with all of you in our purpose to leave no one behind. My colleague Xi will now present the SDG calculator, which is the tool that we are currently developing together with ICMIF members.

Vicci Xi Fan:

Thank you, Alicia. So in this context, I will now dig a bit deeper into the methodology and also the thinking behind the insurance SDG calculator. And as you can see, the approach of the SDG calculator is supporting and also following UNEP PSI. So that’s the principles for sustainable insurance roadmap, where the roadmap starts from mapping and prioritizing the insurance SDGs. The insurance SDGs are basically the SDG translated from the UN SDGs in the insurance context. And of course with that, we develop indicators in order to measure different sustainability impact under different SDGs.

And once we have the indicator, including the metrics and including the contribution and harm so that we can quantify the business and the portfolios performance, we want to put this performance into context and that is the target. So we will have targets for each indicator. And of course it is a very complicated topic, but in general, the target setting approach are a top-down or bottom-up. And top-down would be to allocate a global target or industry target on to individual insure, co-operative or mutual. And the bottom-up approach would be to try to achieve industry consensus around qualitative target among insures, among mutuals, and then to project the target from this consensus.

And once the indicators with the target, we put them into a comprehensive analytic framework, which is modular and flexible in order to cope with different scenarios with the ever-evolving development of definitions. And of course the output of this SDG calculator would be SDG scores.

So for the sake of time, I won’t go into detail of how we actually calculate, but just to have this nutshell five-step of calculation so that you can understand it in high level. The first step would be just go with the indicators. That is to select and wait, the indicators that are relevant for an insurer, and then to quantify the portfolio and also business operation. And with the data from the quantification would put them through different mechanism in order to translate those portfolio volume were operation data into different sustainability impacts. And we compared those impacts with its associated target in order to have the score. So the score, each indicator score is telling you where you are right now, comparing to your target on this topic. And finally, we can aggregate the score onto SDGs, onto your whole portfolio, onto your whole business. So you can have a much more high level view as well.

So the insurance SDG calculator, as Alicia has already pointed out, always wanted to integrate, and also reflect the views, the actions, and also the goals of mutuals. And we’re working with our partners in order to incorporate their thinking, their existing metrics, and their strategies as well in order to, to embed those kinds of things throughout the methodology of the calculator. And starting from the indicator we are working with our partners in order to include indicators where half the existing indicator, reflecting their key priorities, including reduce poverty and provide protection for their members, communities, and also reduce carbon footprint.

And we have some example indicators in this area just to give you some flavor on how the indicator look like. So for example, we have low-income access for insurance, for low-income people under SDG 1, on poverty, and we will have the associated contribution part and harming part for this topic. And of course, we will also have the measure. So in this case, it will be the number of people provided with insurance. We also have these kind of indicators, for SDG 13, measuring the carbon footprint of the underwriting portfolio. And we also have a indicator on their SDG 17 measuring you’re active level and mature level of your SDG strategy and collaboration. So those are just example indicators, and we have indicators actually covering the whole 17 SDGs.

But when we move on, there’s also a different aspect of the portfolio that we will also take into account, including the very basic, the size of the portfolio, the lines of business of the portfolio. But also some quality of this portfolio or the product and service. So for example, for an agriculture portfolio, we will also look at, for example, the fraction of sustainable technology that is being adopted by the policy holder. And we can also look at the environmental footprint, including carbon footprint, the pollution, your impact on biodiversity, et cetera. And we can also look at the fraction of small scale producers in order to reflect a comprehensiveness of the portfolio’s protection.

Another example would be microinsurance and I believed Jun Jay will tell you all about, but we want to make sure that we also embed the protection gap aspect in the portfolio quantification and impact derivation. So for example, we have indicators that is measuring exactly this topic. That example would be access to essential insurance for low-income people. But there’s also some other aspect that will embed in an indicator where in order to reward leaving no one behind, we will give more credit to the part of the portfolio where you’re insuring those underprivileged people, the previously under-insured risk, or industry activities with more credit.

So with that we have moving to the target setting, which is a very complicated topic. So I just want to comment that it is very important that we collaborate with government, with industry bodies, with our peer and partners, and also with academia in order to quantify where we are right now and also to draw where we should be in the future in order to explore what are the feasible, but also sufficiently ambitious targets. And it could also be data-driven. It could also be based on rough industry consensus, or it could be merging both.

And finally, with all of that, we will have the score that hopefully will represent the sustainability focus and strategy of mutuals and insurers. And this score will tell you the risk and opportunity in your sustainable business journey. For example, we have carbon footprint score that tells you where you are on the road to align to Paris Agreement. We will also have NetCat resilience score that will reflect the climate impact on your business, sorry, your portfolios, risk management. And there are many, many other score, for example, the protection gap score. And there will also be like pollution score. There will also be like gender equality or other policyholder equality score, et cetera, to reflect different aspect. And so, yeah, that’s the methodology very generally. And I will leave the closing remark for Alicia. You’re on mute, Alicia.

Alicia Montoya:

Thank you Xi. So thank you for highlighting the way in which we’re bringing together all these different aspects of the impact that mutuals and insurers can have on societies and the economy and the planet. And what’s really important, and we would like to highlight just once again, is that for us to really develop something that meets ICMIF and mutuals and insurers needs very specifically, we need to work together. And so, as we highlighted, we’re already working with ICMIF Global. We are working on two R&D pilots, but we really need everybody to join this effort because it is only through our collaboration and our shaping together. And this will be a journey and we will learn things and we will continue to develop the ways we look at things, the ways we measure things. And we will develop products and services to better support policy holders. And so to better design the indicators, the weightings, and the targets we need to collaborate. So we very much welcome any mutuals that would like to join the effort. Thank you.

Tsutomu Matsubara (AOA):

Thank you so much, Alicia. So this is very much important project for our promoting SDGs in the context of mutuals and cooperatives. And also as Alicia mentioned in the end, it’s a journey, I understand it’s a journey to not sort of know a one time or finished project. It’s more journey to constantly evolve and improve. And one immediate question to Alicia, or Xi is, I assume, 17 SDGs and to make SDGs calculator is a really daunting task. And do we have any sort of prioritization of the 17 SDGs in the context of the SDGs calculator? I understand you want to be comprehensive, but also, I imagine it’s sort of constraints, significant constraints of data and the quantification of issues and so on. So just my question is, do we have any prioritization of SDGs or which SDGs? Is it more important for insurance, or mutuals, or co-operative than others? Do you have any views on that?

Vicci Xi Fan:

Thank you for the question. So I would like to say they, all the SDGs are very important, but under … So basically in our R&D progress, there are definitely some SDGs that are more, let’s say more advanced in terms of how we quantify it. And that would be those more environmental aspect related SDGs. And of course the thing that pops into your mind would be SDG 13, climate action. And that is also the SDG where we always started was whenever we have a pilot, or whenever we have a deep dive, or review session with partners, or with colleagues.

And it is because first of all, it is the one of the hottest topic right now. And it is also that the metrics for quantifying climate impact, including carbon emission is also a bit more mature than some others, especially those social aspects. So we want to start from there. And in fact, we have very developed and advanced methodology to calculate underwriting portfolios, carbon impact right now. And of course, what we learned from this practice and all those thinkings from partners and colleagues will also be reflected and be a foundation for developing the quantification methodology for other SDGs and especially those that are not. So let’s say so science-based but are more like human based. I hope that answered your question.

Alicia Montoya:

If I may add, if I may add, I think one of the things that really impressed us about our work and our collaboration with The Co-operators and Sancor Seguros is their focus on the financial resilience of their policy holders, which really as Zi rightly mentions, there’s a lot of consensus and metrics around the E in ESG. There’s very little focus on S and G. And I have to say one of the reasons why we were so impressed and why we are so impressed and grateful to work with ICMIF is because of the focus on S. So I think you stand in a unique position to help the world develop the S factor.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

Thank you. Thank Alicia. So just, I think Alicia … Excellent segue to Jun Jay so this issue, so financial resilience issue, or I think it’s also related to poverty reduction issue, too. And I assume that … Well, let’s move on to that Jun Jay’s presentation. And anyway, we’ll discuss more in depth in the panel discussion afterwards. So Jun Jay, I assume that you talk about this. That’s excellent segue from Alicia and Zi. Thank you.

Jun Jay Perez:

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. Good morning, wherever you are in this part of the region. Thank you anyway, for this opportunity to share that the work that we do here in the Philippines, I believe my task here is to provide some concrete evidence on the economic and social benefits of a mutual microinsurance as can be contemplated in the earlier presentations of Alicia, and Zi. To my presentation, I’ll quickly discuss about our association, the microinsurance MBAs, the different financial, non-financial services available to the mutual members. And of course the meat of the presentation is on the economic and social benefits of mutual microinsurance and a little about the pandemic response of the Mi-MBAs. So the MiMAP, or also known as the RIMANSI, is the advocate of the mutuality model in my insurance provision here, primarily here in Southeast Asia. But in the Philippines, we are an association of 18 mutual microinsurers with a combined membership of a 7.22 million members insuring about 27 million lives.

In terms of the contribution to the microinsurance market, the mutual microinsurance here in the Philippines contribute about 60% of the outreach of all the microinsurance in the Philippines. And these mutuals has a shared mission of reaching out to 12 million members in five years now that’s by 2024 and ensuring about 4 million lives, as the mutuals here are providing family life insurance. MiMAP and RIMANSI, RIMANSI is also a member of ICMIF, and the AOA, and some of the MBAC in the Philippines. Regarding the mutual benefit associations, basically the development of the microinsurance microfinance sector in Philippines is a very important component of the success of the microinsurance MBA as they harness the social distribution network. To make microinsurance available to the poor and low-income households. MBAs are allowed to manufacture life and health insurance product, but are not allowed to underwrite non-life insurance.

So if they want to offer non-life insurance, they partner with commercial insurance companies. The very customer care that the MBAs practice is enshrined in the code of conduct of the MBAs. And that’s a 1-3-5 days claim settlement, very popular now in the Philippines. And in fact, have set the bar for all the insurers pay the claims within one day from the first time that the MBA was not defined. Within in three days, if there are questions. But several with finality on the fifth day. And the distribution channels of the here in the Philippines are the NGO MFIs, the Co-op teams, and drug banks, doing primarily microfinance. In terms of legal framework, the MBAC are registered with the Philippines securities and exchange commission as nonstop and nonprofit associations. And like operatives, they are owned and governed by.

And like cooperatives, they are owned and governed by the members. And Mi-MBAs are also regulated by the Philippine insurance commission. Now, a member of the Mi-MBA will have access to some of the financial and non-financial services that’s made a bit available, not only by the MBA, but the partner microfinance institutions and the other related institutions for the group. This very model of this mechanism is the CARD mutually reinforcing institutions become also a benchmark for the other MFIS and MBAs to strengthen value proposition to their members and improve the resilience of their member clients through different risk managing financial services that could include the microfinance. And then when they graduate from microfinance, they get small and medium enterprise loans, they have access to savings, and business development services. In terms of micro-insurance, they have access to life, non-life, and health-related. And of course, MBAs being with social objectives as social investments as well.

In terms of health and education services in collaboration with the CARD MFIs, like for example, the biggest steer CARD has a pharmacy that make available cheaper medicines for their members. They do also community health programs for those who don’t have access, and scholarship and education programs for members and their children. Now to the meet of this presentation, in 2019, the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership released a report on the impact assessment of a study made five years after typhoon Haiyan, which devastated some parts of the Philippines in 2013, the research was done to contribute to the growing evidence base of that demonstrates how micro-insurance can deliver the social and economic benefits aligned with the sustainability development goals. The study also would like to increase the profile of the mutual micro insurers and carry out an impact assessment CARD MBA probably was selected because it’s the biggest micro-insurance provider and with about 500,000 member households affected by a typhoon Haiyan.

It is important to note that in this presentation, the activities and policies of CARD MBAs are intertwined with the other institutions with CARD MBA group. But this focused particularly on the specific role of CARD MBA where possible. So in this slide, we can see four groups that were included in the survey. There were about 280 respondents and A1 and A2 belongs to the insured group. And then B1 and B2, B1 actually were not insured before typhoon Haiyan, but after typhoon Haiyan they subscribe to the micro-insurance groups as in the microfinance, and then the B2 segments are those that were never insured whether before or after the typhoon Haiyan. So some of the key findings include the following, at first one is if you look at the recovery side, those who were insured have actually rebuild their houses faster than the non-insured and they use the same strong roof, but the uninsured used more weaker materials in outer walls and more open firestorms.

And another observation is that in terms of restarting the business, it’s a basic functional level of recovery and what’s possible for the insured segment, but not for the uninsured ones. Those can be seen here in the table, but very interesting to note that about 75% of the uninsured used to be a micro-entrepreneurs as well, but five years after, without access to credit and other financial services, most of them are now involved in livelihoods that earn wages and commissions. In terms of financial recovery, people generally interpreted this as having some savings in the access to financial networks. But most of the insured, if you can see here are back to pre typhoon levels, while about 75%, according to the study of the non-insured claim, they are not back to pre Haiyan financial levels. So in terms of coping mechanisms in the third row, the help from a variety of aid organizations were available immediately after the typhoon and used by actually across all the respondents in this survey, be in the form of cash, materials for rebuilding homes, and food, and medicine.

If you can see here, the A1 segment, those who made a claim, and some insurance proceeds and took out some loans also after typhoon Haiyan. And those who have not made the claim, basically took out loans and used up their savings and not yet enough, and they resorted to working with their family and friends for additional assistance. While those who were insured only after typhoon Haiyan, they used up their savings and they sell also some of their assets, but as we can see here, those who were never insured among the respondents relied basically on aid organizations and aid also from the government. And the last row, must you have observed having lost someone in the family, those who made the insurance claim sent their children back to school later than all the other segments of the respondents.

And I think very important to note also in this studies that the solidarity network fostered through the CARD MBA structure, especially in terms of relief packages and visits from staff, where the two reasons given by the respondents as a show of concern from the MBA that differentiates it from the other insurers in the area. Now, this is a very long illustration of the relating the activities of the MBAs to the SDGs, maybe that can be very helpful also in terms of the SDG calculator. And, but Dr. Ana Gonzalez Pelaez spoke lengthily on this last month, I think around later in May were a similar webinar at ICMIF conducted. The report mentioned that different insurance programs actually shared a common trend across that 10 SDGs with the type of program implemented influencing which particular goals are impacted. As presented earlier, also by very much aligned with the organizational priorities on the AOA members in terms of the sustainable development goals. But quickly on this, target number one, no poverty, very obvious for micro-insurance, especially in terms of the integration of microfinance and micro-insurance services.

And of course members participating in the distribution network through community centers. Looking at goal number three on a good health and well-being, this is not really in the activities of CARD MBA, but that CARD MBA members are affected. They also benefit from this, from the activities on CARD MRI. These are, this would include a free medical check-ups, discounted medicines, access to a network of a trusted healthcare providers through discounted services in partnership with the government’s social health insurance program. By offering facilitating payment and offering loans related to the payment of this premium for the social health insurance program. In terms of a quality education in goal number four, it also mentions about lifelong learning. So it’s very, very important to emphasize the work of CARD MBA and CARD MRI in terms of providing college scholarship programs, and educational loans, and targeting one family, one graduate program.

So it’s like one college graduate every family is a really very noble work in terms of lifting up the families from poverty, because we know here in the Philippines that the income disparity between high school graduates and college graduates, the gap is really large. And in terms of goal number five, gender equality, the microfinance and micro-insurance sector in the Philippines just develop, this way, targeting really the excluded women from financial services, especially those who resides in rural areas and looking at these activities, it helps in terms of women’s participation and equal opportunities in leadership and equal rights to economic resources. Looking at volunteer members offering their time in terms of helping those affected members in times of death in the family, or in times of calamities, and some of them are participating in electoral process of the board of trustees.

Some of them, most of the board of trustees actually in the MBAs are from the general membership, representative from the general membership. Looking at indicator eight, I’ll fast track on this, it’s really again on access to banking insurance and financial services. So it can be related to insurance payouts and other social investments of the MBA. Now, target goal number 10, especially in terms of a target 10.5 in improving and implementing regulations, CARD MBA being the pioneer micro-insurance MBA in the Philippines really shaped the business model in terms of working with the regulators. And in fact, pillar in terms of establishing remands to further move forward the policy advocacy with the regulators. And in terms of participating in a more enabling policy environment for the mutual micro insurers. Target 11…

So I’ll skip the other part of the list one and very specific on the impact indicators. I’ll just discuss this Kawai-san. If you look at social performance indicators and financial performance indicators, we can have, for example, the number of members belonging to the poor and low income segments, that’s 35%, 0.3% above the retirement age. 80% to 90% are joining the credit with education program and about 76% of the members are actually female. And some financial indicators, very important also is that social investment ratio, about 1.18% of a CARD MRI gross income goes to the social investments and MBA, the MBA is a hundred percent owned by the members and the MBA is also own other institutions within the CARD MRI. So I think in my presentation, we can conclude that really the MBAs are, especially mutual micro-insurance are making a big, significant contribution in terms of attaining the social development growth. So I think I’ll skip the other slides, Kawai-san, thank you and good afternoon, back to you.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

Yeah. Thank you Jun Jay, for this presentation. The key part of this micro-insurance activities that you mentioned is naturally related to poverty reduction issues. That’s a very important of micro-insurance. And my question to you is, are there any evidence that the micro-insurance of distribution is helpful for poverty reduction or in other words, achieving this SDG goals? You are muted, yeah.

Jun Jay Perez:

Okay. Thank you Kawai-san. In this particular study, there’s no evidence available on policy holders improving their poverty status over time. But this study also pointed out that CARD MRI, as the overarching organization for all the institutions within CARD group, they monitor some proxy indicators on that. For example, in terms of maximizing microfinance loan cycles, if you are a good member and good payer, you get to have a higher, a loan amount that you can avail. And so when members move to the ladder, higher amounts, then that’s one proxy indicator. Also, if this members graduate from microfinance loan to higher loans of a small and medium enterprises, that’s one area also that we can look at. And if members also start to get loans for productive assets, that’s one area that can be looked at in terms of the quality of life. And then if they can send their children to college, I think one very important indicator in terms of looking at the quality of life of the members, Kawai-san.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

Yeah. Thank you Jun Jay. Okay, good. So let’s move on to the panel discussion on set, the theme of our panel is naturally promotion of SDGs in the mutual cooperative sector and fundamental question of our theme is, how or what cooperative mutual can contribute to this SDGs promotion, what area, has I asked that question to some extent to Jun Jay and also Vicci and Alicia, but do you have any view, which area, of course, it’s related to how to, but what the areas always teaches that our sector mutual cooperative can contribute to and poverty reduction is not yet the one area and the climate change, hopefully other areas too, but do you have any views or, as a insurance or mutuals cooperative, how we can contribute, which areas we can contribute most of every directory?

Alicia Montoya:

So from our work with ICMIF, what we have learned is that, and this really is a very strong endorsement to the importance of not just the work that mutuals are doing, but the work that ICMIF global is doing to lead some of the strategic focus areas and of course, AOA for APAC. And I think what’s really interesting is that each mutual brings a certain focus and value to the mutual community. And that’s really important because nobody can cover all the risks in the world. Nobody can solve all the problems in the world, and we need to work together in order to bring all of our smarts and solutions to the world and then share those. And that’s why the ICMIF platform is so important for members to share. And what we’ve seen is that different members have different areas of focus, and it really is down to the business strategy, to the country, to the specificities and needs of each community that you’re supporting. So from our global picture is we see this as a very important element to the bigger impact that we want to have collectively.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

Good. Thank you. Jun Jay, do you have any view on that?

Jun Jay Perez:

Thank you. I look at this in three goals, basically number one is on, in terms of no poverty. I believe our leaders here are daily looking at this as part of the, we are in the business of poverty reduction and poverty is still a major development issue in the Philippines and a social safety net, social protection is a very important component of the Philippine development plan. And so we believe we are contributing much in this, in goal number one. Goal number two is on gender equality, mentioned lately in my presentation about providing the opportunity for those traditionally excluded from a financial services, more importantly, the rural women in terms of empowerment, economic empowerment, and participate in decision making in households. And so that’s one very big area. I believe we are doing so much.

And I think the third one is basically in terms of partnerships, a lot of the SDG I think can be moved forward with a lot of partnerships that are being needed. So in our case, partnerships are really very helpful in terms of regulation, partnering with our regulators in terms of moving forward the enabling policy environment, distribution channel for microfinance providers, and also non-life insurance companies, because we are not allowed to underwrite non-life insurance plan so we have to partner with them to provide to our members non-life insurance cover. And finally, in terms of capacity building, whether internal or external, we need to partner with institutions like Swiss Re, it needs the way to move forward the mutual micro-insurance agenda.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

This gender equality, could you explain a little bit more, how cooperative mutuals contribute to gender equality?

Jun Jay Perez:

Well, part of the social performance that the institutions are monitoring actually in terms of participation. Traditionally here in the Philippines, the advent of microfinance and micro-insurance actually was brought about by the exclusion of the women in terms of the financial services that’s why a lot of identifies, when they started focus their effort in terms of providing financial services to this particular sector, that’s about 76% as of the data of CARD 2019, about 76% of their members are actually women.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

So include women in the insurance coverage and those insurance activities itself?

Jun Jay Perez:

Yes, actually they are primarily covered. And then the policy also covers the spouse and the children. So it’s like you only buy one micro-insurance cover, and then everyone in the family is covered.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

I see good, thank you. Vicci, do you have any view on that or which areas or what we can contribute as a insurer mutual cooperative?

Vicci Xi Fan:

Yeah, I think Alicia and Jun Jay already covered, but I’m also convinced that mutuals and cooperatives has a more, let’s say advance role in closing the protection gap, especially for those underprivileged and vulnerable people, but also social communities. And also let’s say industry or business that are not people. And I believe this protection gap exists across all the SDGs. Of course, non poverty would be the one that is looking directly at it, but there’s also climate action where vulnerable people are usually suffer more from climate induced weather event because of this under insured. And there’s also other SDGs that I believe protection gap also plays a role, including clean water, including life on land, et cetera. So the vulnerable people usually are vulnerable across the SDGs. And I think it’s really important to have these protection gap aspect thinking in our mind, when we look at other SDGs that are not directly associated with like non poverty. And I believe with these, this aspect in mind, also embedded in the SDG calculator, mutuals, and cooperatives can actually play and actually show their role in this area.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

Excellent. So for this protection gap covers various issues, as Vicci explained, so this is a sort of core of insurance business protection gap means that the insurance or mutual cooperative provide protection to anybody possible, which is needed. And as I explained, climate change, poverty areas or whatever, there is some weakness in the economy and the risk of insurance companies, mutual cooperatives can play a role. And of course, key issue, how do we enhance this protection gap or to address protection gap? In other words, and to address these SDGs issues, of course, you know your calculator, SDGs calculator is important element, but do we have any other thoughts how insurance mutuals cooperatives can promote addressing protection gap? Do you have any thoughts?

Alicia Montoya:

Yes. And maybe this wasn’t made clear enough when we presented, but so there’s three aspects that we look at when we’re trying to quantify the impact. And that is, that impact can be harmful or contributory like across the following the UN contribution no harm matrix. And so when we look at the impacts, there’s direct impact, that’s what your products and services can do. And that, of course, micro-insurance is a great example of the kind of products and services that mutuals can bring to address the protection gap. Then there’s the indirect impact, and we need to consider that a lot. And of course this has harm, but also contribution aspects. And this is something that has not always been measured. And the third thing is the operational impact, which in the case of service companies may be not as important as the other two. Right?

And so when we look at the direct and impact, one of the things that the calculator does is to take into account all the things that go beyond products and services that you sell. So it’s awareness campaigns, it’s R&D investments, it’s developing all the infrastructure in order to then power products and services, or to make them more effective. So there’s a lot, I mean, if you follow the ICMIF Twitter account, you see, every day there’s a mutuals bringing out a new awareness campaign. One of my favorite was actually a campaign that [Zingaran 01:27:44] put out during COVID where to help kids reduce traffic accidents and they had a robot because, of course, everybody was locked up and so kids needed to stay safe. And so they had this campaign with a robot, and I think these are great examples of how you can influence prevention and compliment the products and services for protection.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

I see. So what you’ve said is not only provide products, but also service and also protection issue, prevention issue, and the [crosstalk 01:28:23] education.

Alicia Montoya:

Exactly. And develop the R&D for the future products and services. So there’s a lot to, and another example is for example the ocean, and there’s a lot of risks that we don’t yet understand fully. And there’s a lot of impacts that we still have not measured or are not able to quantify. And so you see it in things like the red tide in Japan, and how can we use new technologies like sensors and new predictive models to better manage things like red tide and then protect the businesses and policy holders that suffer from it.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

But Alicia, you mentioned, it’s also just scope for mutuals cooperative business has to be reconsidered, right? So not only paying claims or benefit, but also assess risks like red tide or so on, and then try to provide products to cover those risks. And in addition, you mentioned prevention, risk reduction issue is also can be a business of mutual cooperatives too. So we now tend to limit scope of a business, insurance mutuals cooperative provide protection to take claims, but you have said…

Alicia Montoya:

No, and that’s a really important aspect for two reasons. One is nobody can manage the risks that we have in the world. Nobody. The risks are completely unpayable, no matter how big all the insurance and mutual… completely unpayable. No matter how big all the insurance and mutual companies in the world are, we cannot cover all the risks in the world and they’re growing. So the first thing is we need to prevent as much as we can, and we need to react to risks much quicker and much more effectively. And this is where technology plays a key role because we need to reduce the losses as much as possible. So first, we need to prevent everything we can. Everything that we can’t prevent, we need to react as quickly as possible to reduce the losses. And then our products and services need to help people bounce back as quickly as possible. They need to be effective in order to, again, reduce the losses. And only through those three, before, during, and after, can we really start bringing these risks under protection.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

Jun Jay or Xi, do we have any view on this? Of course back when the hurricane’s bigger and bigger. What role Mutuals Cooperative should play and how we can contribute to the society or achieving SDGs? Do you have any views?

Jun Jay Perez:

Yeah, I think there were several cited in my presentation, but I think looking at, for example, the early warning system because of the large distribution networks, the early warning systems that can be provided through SMS text messages. Now more widely used is the Messenger. A lot of them also because of the pandemic, a lot of them are using already in terms of communication between staff and among members, the Messenger. The information can be passed on really and [Card MB 01:32:11], for example, they have improved their systems and mechanisms for communicating with members, including chatbots. And then in our association level, we’re also doing some mobile applications that can enhance the efficiency of the key processes for enrollment, collections, claims, and more importantly, for managing feedbacks from the members. That can also be a channel for helping members in terms of calamity.

I think one of the very important mechanisms that this pointed out with this study is that solidarity. The idea that the Mutuals care through the services that they provide, like relief box and just checking on the members after the calamity. Like right now, we’re doing some learning session programs through online mechanisms. I think that’s a very thing that the members appreciate now because they feel that they are cared for even without receiving that insurance benefits, but the quality of relationship and network, the solidarity network that’s being developed with the Cooperatives and Mutuals among their members and within the organizations are really very important for them.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

So using technology and enhance this mutuality of solidarity issues are in the sector. I see. Thank you. Xi, do you have any views on this?

Vicci Xi Fan:

Yes. And actually, what Jun Jay just said also got me thinking, and I was going to mention accessibility. So basically there’s different ways that you can approach to the people who are not sufficiently insured, but this digital channel thing also makes me thinking that it could also be used for better shaping of your product. And also, was this kind of a closed communication… Now I believe Mutuals and Cooperative have a naturally more closeness with their members and with the community. And I believe this role and different channels, including like the chatbox, including some other online communication tools brings or strengthens this closeness. And with that, you understand the consideration and the need from your members. Therefore, you can shape the product and service better in order to better protect them. And of course, it is a two way thing was that it can also help them understand why they need protection and how to better use this protection and also how to protect themselves with this awareness raising program, et cetera.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

Thank you. So just coming back to the hour, so the key theme of this quantification, standardization, and assessment of these SDGs so that we can basically make it visible or how much progress we make and just return to this SDGs calculator or how we can make more systematically to approach this SDGs issue. Let’s try it a little bit narrowed down.

As I presented and Alicia, Xi, and Jun Jay explained more detail that I think that conceptually are to promote the SDGs in the Mutual Cooperative. I think it’s very important to achieving the SDG cohorts or mission on serving that mission is extremely important, and then cascades down on each SDGs or areas of SDGs that we can promote. And then to make it more detailed, granular, hopefully some sort of assessment possible quantification to make concretely what we want to achieve. So in that context, just coming back to Alicia and Vicci, could you explain a little bit more your SDGs calculator? I understand that your calculator is aiming to achieving SDGs goal in a very objective manner and visible manner, but could you describe a little bit more in detail, how Mutuals at the Cooperative can make best use of your tool to achieve SDGs goal?

Alicia Montoya:

Okay. So let me start. It’s a really great question. The first thing is that in order for us to be able to quantify impact, we need to agree on what the indicators that are going to enable us to measure are. So that’s step number one is agreeing on a set of indicators with corresponding metrics that are the right metrics that can really quantify the impact and that are readily available. So it’s important that this is not a difficult data to get. So that’s part of the R&D work that we’re doing is to actually look at what are the key indicators? What are the right metrics? And is this data available? So that’s the first thing.

The second thing is reviewing the weights and the targets that we set ourselves as an industry. This is really important because we need to find a narrative that is positive and constructive, but also achievable and ambitious. So how do we get there? The first thing is quantifying and establishing where we are. The second thing is establishing where we want to be. And this is why it’s so important that we first agree on the quantification so that we can get a baseline. And with that, we can take informed decisions on what the pathway is that we want to follow, and that we can follow in order to achieve the very ambitious targets that we have.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

In a sense. But Alicia, what you have said is industry wide or sort of entity wide? What’s the sort of target that you are referring to?

Alicia Montoya:

Great question. So currently, because targets is such a difficult topic, we’re starting bottom up to get an understanding of where we’re at. So really, this first effort is around baselining, baselining on where we are, baselining on targets, baselining on everything. It’s like, where are we as an industry? The second step should be industry driven, and not just industry driven, regulation plays a key role. Countries, industries. So there are many different aspects of how some of these targets are top-down, but don’t forget companies already have bottom-up targets. And the beauty of the calculator is it brings both together bottom-up and top-down.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

His question is just related to what you have discussed this year. So what role of Cooperative Mutuals can contribute to the society by using tools like using calculator. Calculator is a tool to promote Mutuals and Cooperatives SDGs goal, right? And I understand some area is more developed and more straightforward than others, but in order to make clear contribution, concrete contribution as soon as possible, there is a value issue, right? The valuation has to put up front and then others come forward and so on. And I have a sense, like in Jun Jay and Xi and Alicia’s comment hearing, poverty reduction and the natural disaster. Climate change is clear goal, and it’s more direct, but do we have any views on this? How indicators of calculator data can contribute to the Mutuals Cooperative of promoting their mission? Any view on that?

Alicia Montoya:

Oh, I think Xi should answer this one because she is leading the whole permanent refinement and review of the indicators. So over to you, Xi.

Vicci Xi Fan:

Yeah. I think one of the important thing is that we capture the focus and the thinking and also the actions of Mutuals and Cooperatives, especially those who are already very active in the sustainability area. So that indicator would not just be some standard, but it could also be an example of where you should drive your business towards. And of course, the indicator would also… It will measure different aspects, including your interaction with your customers, including what are the enabling effect of your underwriting portfolio? And basically, we will have a holistic view of where your business is at right at this moment, including all this aspect. And by using the SDG calculator, you can also identify which are the areas that you’re not performing so well.

And also, by doing how much, you can already improve a lot. I imagine there’s going to be scenarios where you can… Just by changing a little bit, and you’re already achieving a much greater positive impact. And we do it in a mathematical way and in a very objective way. And that’s the beauty of the calculator is that it tells you that in the analytical way.

And maybe just another aspect would be that the score is just scores and of course, how you use it is really important. I think there’s a lot of ways, and we’re also brainstorming internally on how we use the score and how we combine the score with other analytic models. And if you combine those performance scores with your underwriting performance with the forward-looking macro economic models with the outlook of your customer community in groups. It will reflecting more value and indicating a much clear avenue for your journey towards sustainability.

Yoshihiro Kawai:

I see. Thank you. Just one question that I saw is taking into account our experiences in COVID, pandemics. Which areas of SDGs that we should particularly take into account and to focus on? So that question is, of course, related to pandemics, but to generally speaking, facing current or global challenge like poverty, reduction of income gap, naturally climate change issue and so on. Of course, we should do a lot on the various areas and in a sense, it depends on the companies and so on. But I still think that generally we have a sort of area that we should particularly focus on as a methodology or as an area that we should pay attention. Do you have any views on that? Jun Jay?

Alicia Montoya:

I actually do have views on that.

So we established that it… I think what Mutuals need to focus on is the impact that they can have. The first thing is I think it’s really important to look at the specificities of the communities that you’re trying to support. There are many. The beauty of the SDGs is it really covers everything that the world needs to achieve. And then every community has different needs, and it’s important that you focus on how you can serve your community specific needs.

The second thing I want to focus on is innovation and differentiation. This is not a corporate social responsibility activity. This is the heart of business. We are doing this because it is good for business. This is how we survive. This is how we have the money to support and to shoulder risk. So it’s really important for companies to think about what are their community’s needs, and what are the most effective ways to serve those? And how can they use technology, partnerships, innovation in products and services in order to best meet those? Because increasingly, the demands of policy holders are growing.

We talked a little bit about those additional prevention services. Remember, this is a differentiation play. When you think about property insurance, do you want to be paid after a hurricane, or would you prefer to have a full package that warns you before there were a hurricane, so early warning systems, that gives you advice and Xi highlighted this because you advised on how to better prepare and manage it. Then of course, that gives you a very automatic, fast payout afterwards, so that you can bounce back quickly. This is a much more powerful offering, so it will help you not just have that impact in your community, but also be able to be there for your community in the years to come because you’re financially successful.

Yoshihiro Kawai::

Thank you. Yeah. Technology and the risk management expertise combination can be very powerful. Jun Jay, do we want to intervene some?

Jun Jay Perez:

Yes. In relation to Alicia’s comment, in terms of specificity. For us in the Philippines, we’re very clear about the mission, reaching the poor, the low income households and the vulnerable. That’s very clear to us. So for example, in this pandemic, our response also to this very difficult situation is look at the profile of our general membership. For example, extension of grace period for payments of their contributions. During lockdowns, people lost their jobs. People can’t go out and do their business due to mobility restrictions.

The current grace period, for example, for now is 45 days for insurance in the Philippines. Another 30 days were encouragement regulators. The Mutuals obliged now and before the end of the year, another 30 days. So that’s a lot of loss in terms of the contributions, but that were actually appreciated by the members because in times of difficulty such as this, their membership and their coverage and subscription were extended because of such particular program of extending the grace period.

So another area is working with the regulators in terms of claim settlement. We don’t want to burden our members and the government also in terms of shouldering the cost of the disease in the family and then all related expenses in terms of a deceased member. So we worked with the insurance commission to actually provide that circular that will also identify claim staff of as frontliners. Frontliners here are those involved in the healthcare system and grocery stores. Frontline in terms of delivering the basic goods and services in the health service.

But here, we worked with the Philippine Insurance Commission in providing that environment. We really have seen the change. In the first month of lockdown, we only paid about 40 million pesos, but when the Insurance Commission issued that Circular, and then in relation to the government’s mobility restrictions. During the next month, second month, we paid already 120 million. The third month, 114 million, and so on. That also illustrated prioritizing the needs of the members and then working with the regulation in terms of addressing the difficulties. So other NBAs, for example, they have excess surplus. One MD actually said that we are giving free life insurance, basic life insurance coverage to all our 200,000 members for a year. Because they have that facility that is available to them now. For the others who are policy loan or equity value loan, they provided that to their members so that the coverage can be extended. There are other programs like the solidarity network continue being offered online. Make any sense?

Yoshihiro Kawai:

Okay. Thank you. Maybe we should conclude. Thank you very much, Jun Jay, Alicia, Xi. Just very brief conclusion. I cannot conclude all the rich discussion, but I understand, as you know, as Jun Jay mentioned, we are fundamentally of Cooperative Mutuals, so for people, and this basic business model is still important foundation for any SDGs matters. But of course, now technology develops, a systemic risk emerged, the situation or the current environment is drastically changed. So how to tackle with this issue is a fundamental challenge.

And in order to find a way to SDGs goal. These SDGs or calculator type of indicator is very helpful. But in order to make best use of that, first of all, each people, each company or Cooperative Mutuals have to identify the key priority of what they are working on and to make best use of that area. And naturally, the key strengths of Mutuals Cooperative insurance is risk assessment, risk management and to address protection gaps. So make best use of our expertise and identify key areas. And based on our foundation, we tackle this new challenge. Thank you.

Tsutomu Matsubara (AOA):

Thank you very much. And thank you very much, Alicia and Xi, Jun Jay, and for your wonderful presentation and discussion. Thank you everyone for joining today’s webinar. We sent you a questionnaire immediately after these webinars, so we’d appreciate your cooperation. And we are planning to organize cities of SDGs webinar focusing on each of SDGs goal afterwards. We would appreciate if you would join us again. Thank you very much. Thank you once again, and we look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you very much.

The above text has been produced by machine transcription from the webinar recording. ICMIF has made every effort to ensure that transcriptions are as accurate as possible, however, in some cases some text may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. Listening to or watching the webinar recording will allow you to hear the full text as delivered during the webinar but this is available in English only. Our transcriptions are provided to enable members to select the language of their choosing using the dropdown menu above.