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Webinar

The ICMIF Foundation – The secret of our success so far…

Scaling up mutual microinsurance in the Philippines: ICMIF’s 5-5-5 Strategy

  • Dr Aris Alip, Founder and Chairman Emeritus, CARD MRI (Philippines)

Achievements and lessons of the ICMIF 5-5-5 Strategy: The Philippines’ experience

  • Jun Jay E. Perez, Executive Director, RIMANSI (Philippines)

Building community resilience: The DHAN way

  • Ahila Devi, Chief Executive of the People Mutuals, Dhan Foundation (India)

The ICMIF Foundation was established by ICMIF in 2015 and launched its programme The ICMIF 5-5-5 Mutual Microinsurance Strategy in June 2016. Six years on, The ICMIF Foundation is currently insuring 3 million low-income households impacting 15 million lives at a project funding cost of less than USD 1 per policy. Supported by over 30 mutual insurance organisations, The ICMIF Foundation is a true embodiment of our mutual values of helping each other and delivering protection to vulnerable underserved communities.

The webinar, jointly hosted by the Asia and Oceania Association of ICMIF (AOA) and ICMIF, looks at how The ICMIF Foundation has succeeded in making a huge impact on the ground when other microinsurance programmes have struggled. Dr Aris Alip, Founder and first Chairman of The Foundation, provides some valuable insight into the realities of microinsurance; the vision behind The 5-5-5 Strategy; and opportunities for the future. This is followed by presentations from two project partners, RIMANSI in The Philippines and The DHAN Foundation in India, who share the challenges and achievements in implementing their respective programmes and the impact they have had on people’s lives and livelihoods.

Click the links above to access the recordings, presentation summaries and slides for each individual presenter. This webinar was hosted by the Asia and Oceania Association of ICMIF (AOA).

Tsutomu Matsubara:

Hello, everybody. Welcome to AOA/ICMIF Mutual Microinsurance Webinar. I’m Tsutomu Matsubara of AOA secretary, today’s moderator.

Aris Alip:

Good afternoon to the participants of this forum. First, I’d like to congratulate AOA for organizing this very important forum. Of course, in coordination with ICMIF. This event is all about the progress. It’s all about what has happened about the program of ICMIF called 5-5-5. I like the word in Japanese. This is go, go, go. And we will be discussing the overview of 5-5-5. Why microinsurance for the pool is very important. And what has happened since then? What were the challenges and what were the achievements of 5-5-5? And how do we move forward? So, again, thank you very much for attending this very important occasion. And, again, thank you very much to AOA for organizing this forum. I will now begin my presentation.

My topic is about the role of microinsurance for the poor: ICMIF’s 5-5-5 strategy.

Let me first give you an overview of microinsurance and its importance for the poor. Microinsurance is a protection availed by low-income people against specific perils for an affordable, regular premium. It is important because microinsurance provide safety net for vulnerable groups or the so-called vulnerable poor. It protects them against natural disaster. And of course it help them grow their businesses. Microinsurance therefore is a very important and very powerful tool in reducing poverty and uplift the lives of the quality. Microinsurance is therefore very important. It’s a very powerful tool in reducing poverty and uplift the lives of the poor. Next slide. Well, according to microinsurance Center, the estimate of microinsurance market could grow to 1 billion policy holders in the next 10 years — this is quite big potential. In developing countries, microinsurance already covered 135 million. This only covered 5% of the potential market.

What are the key challenges for the microinsurance for the poor? One is the lack of trust and understanding of insurance. It is hard to reach the community. The low retention levels. Timely claim payment. Appropriate regulatory environment. Inadequate infrastructure. And the lack of established successful providers. Next slide. Now I’d like to share with you the CARD microinsurance. This is an innovation in the microinsurance for the poor. Next slide. The CARD MRI Microinsurance has three major legged approach. One, we have the CARD MBA. This is owned fully by the members. CaMIA, this is a broker company of CARD. And of course we have a joint venture of CARD with Pioneer. This is what we call CARD Pioneer, where we focus on non-life insurance. CARD MBA focus on the life insurance. Next slide, please. This is our product. We have financial products, life insurance program, retirement fund, loan redemption fund, golden life insurance for the retired members and non-financial products. We also have the CARD MRI Disaster Relief Assistance Program. This is normally given to our clients who are affected in times of calamities, like typhoon, earthquake, fire and other kinds of calamities.

And of course, in our CARD Pioneer, together with CaMIA, we have the non-life products. You have the Sagip Plan. This is actually the housing insurance, calamity insurance, health insurance such as ER Care, MediCash. And of course, we also came up with business interruption insurance. There is Negosure, ProteKita. And of course we are doing also agricultural insurance called the BINHI Crop Insurance. Next slide, please. What are the results and impact? The CARD MBA being the largest mutual insurance in the country is ensuring about 27 million lives in the country. And I’m proud that this belong to the poorest among the poor in the country. And the total amount paid for insurance is more than $291 million. This is in terms of the claims. What about the CARD Pioneer? Total policy sold is $93 million and total amount of claims paid is already almost $40 million.

I thought I should also share with you the ICMIF 5-5-5 mutual micro insurance strategy before we look at the progress and the challenges of the 5-5-5. 5-5-5 mutual microinsurance strategy was launched in June, 2016, to scale up mutual microinsurance in five countries. The objectives are very clear. Building insurable poor population, building resilience, this is an informed approach, very focus in terms of long-term sustainability and hopefully this will be supported by like-minded organization. To date, the insurance policy is about 75 sets per policy. What about the accomplishment today? People insured: 2,852,201. And because this is a family insurance, the lives that are impacted is about 14,261,005. The technical assignments undertaken by our membership is about 18 assignments. Four countries already have concluded and published the country diagnostics. Five projects have already commenced. And I’m glad to know that we have three ongoing projects in 5-5-5. We have Kenya, Philippines and India. The total funds that have been raised over the years is more than $2 million. And the cooperative and mutual insurance who are supporting from our membership is about 30 members.

I’d like also to share with you what are the challenges of 5-5-5. First, members and their foundation primarily only give to local good causes, not necessarily going to our strategy of 5-5-5. Members only give to international reputable charities in response to international disaster events. What I mean by this is while many of our members are giving grants and assistance to our 5-5-5, we’ve also noticed that a number of our membership are giving more funds to international organization like UN and other courses. It’ll be good if these other organization will also give a significant amount to our 5-5-5. The sense of ownership, interest or responsibility for the work of the foundation. While a number of us as members are very interested and we have sense of ownership, still we notice that a number of our members from ICMIF still need to develop that strong sense of ownership and responsibility to the work of ICMIF Foundation, who is now managing our 5-5-5.

Effectiveness of technical assistance. It was also noted that the technical assistance would be better done by south to south, rather than the north to south because of communication and culture. While the north to south becomes very effective in terms of new technology, we found it more effective if the technical assistance is coming from south to south. What are the opportunities now? Because of this pandemic, the climate change, refugee crisis demonstrated the world is small place and interlinked. Customer are more connected and concerned with what is happening around the world. Differentiation between commercial and mutual insurance are narrowing and closing. And it also shows that with a better position, mutual insurance are in the best position to help the poor. Our foundation, the ICMIF Foundation, is a unique charity as it is in the same line of business of our members. The ICMIF Foundation track record in managing the 5-5-5 strategy of ICMIF, now has a track record. As you can note, we are increasing our number of people insured — a number of lives being in fact impacted. So I think we’re in a better position to move forward with our strategy with all the support that we can get from all the membership.

What is the way forward of the ICMIF Foundation strategy? The way forward of the ICMIF Foundation strategic goal 2022-2024 with reference to our 5-5-5. First, to reach more people with mutual microinsurance and impact the SDGs. Second, ensure the work of the foundation supports the strategic objective of ICMIF members. We will always be aligned. Building better knowledge on mutual microinsurance programs around the world. Develop partnership with external organization to support mutual microinsurance provider. I think this is also important that we link with other external organization like UN and ADB, World Bank and other organization that has position of influence in terms not only in policy, but also their funding. We should continue strengthening the competency and capabilities of the foundation. Thank you very much.

Sabbir Patel (CEO of the ICMIF Foundation):

Thank you. I think that Dr Aris’ presentation was quite comprehensive highlighting the importance of mutual microinsurance to the life and livelihoods of the poor. In particular, the potential role of mutuals who are there to address the needs of our communities in terms of delivering holistic risk-based strategies to these communities, I think, has been highlighted. And we look very much forward to hearing from our two programs from the Philippines and India in terms of how the support from ICMIF members has been utilized to reach more people with mutual microinsurance.

Jun Jay Perez:

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone, from different parts of the world. Thank you, AOA and ICMIF for giving us the opportunity to share the work that we do here, especially that related to the 5-5-5 program. I’ll be sharing our experiences using the three key faces that we undertaken in our journey towards the 5-5-5 program. We started with the country diagnostic, looking at the demand and supply, the regulatory background, frameworks for mutual microinsurance in the Philippines, and of course the industry and sector performance among others. The next aspect is the country strategy. We’ll be sharing about based on the country diagnostic, what has been the focus of the country in terms of the 5-5-5 program and the specific objectives that was laid out for the five years — 2016 until around 2021 now. And of course, aligned with the strategies are, what are the activities that we implemented with microinsurance in the Philippines.

I was requested to provide some quick background on the characteristics of the mutual microinsurance in the Philippines. Of course, I’ll be speaking about the microinsurance MBAs or Mutual Benefit Associations. But there are also other mutual insurers here in the Philippines for ICMIF members as well belonging to the cooperative insurance societies such as CISP and CLIMBS, but I’ll be talking more on the performance of the microinsurance MBAs aligned with the 5-5-5 program. So basically the Mutual Benefit Associations providing mutual microinsurance here in the Philippines in nature are non-stock, non-profit organizations. And as mentioned by Dr. Alip, they provide family life insurance and health related products. That’s their limitation. And they can only offer these products for members. And the basic life insurance of the Mi-MBAs here have the equity value component. It’s a 50% of their regular contributions that are sort of like a fourth savings for them that are refunded to them when they terminate their membership to the MBA.

And one area also that should be noted is that because of this equity value, the maximum operating expense allowed for Mi-MBAs in the Philippines is capped at 20%. So looking back at the diagnostic study in 2014, there are about a 100 million individuals of Filipino… Composing population of the Philippines in 2014. And you can look at here the potential, the supply for microinsurance. The outreach during the time is around 28 million individuals, but the unserved segment is at 38 million now. So that’s a very big gap actually in terms of the microinsurance market. This market looks at only the low income households excluding the middle class and the higher income class now.

So of this 28 million outreach of microinsurance in 2014, 12 million of that were being provided by the microinsurance MBAs. And of course, our co-members from the CIS, 1CISP and CLIMBS providing about 7.8 million policies during that time. And it was expected that the market of microinsurance in the Philippines looking at the 2014 data would expand to about 73.3 million by 2020. So what were the opportunities an option to the diagnostic study that was conducted in the Philippines? So basically I’ve mentioned about 53% of the low income sector are not served by microinsurance during the time. And then a favorable mutual microinsurance regulatory environment. We’re so lucky that in our very old insurance code, there’s already a provision for mutuals now. And it was updated in 2013. That included already when we introduced some improvements in the insurance code. And that includes also the definition of micro insurance already in the insurance code though.

And I think one very significant regulatory framework is that based on the insurance code provisions of Mutual Benefit Associations, the insurance commission here has issued a specific circular that outlines the participation of microinsurance MBAs in the microinsurance market. So that was very relevant. And of course, around 2010/2012, the Philippines has already developed the regulatory framework for microinsurance and the national strategy for microinsurance. So those are very helpful framework, regulatory and policy issuances that can be capitalized during the time in terms of expansion of mutual microinsurance. And another one opportunity is that there’s already a vibrant microinsurance MBA sector during the time. If I’m not mistaken, there around 12 microinsurance MBAs already in our network during the time now. And of course, RIMANSI being a resource center that replicate the CARD MBA business model also has been working with this MFIs and cooperative to put up also their own MBA in terms of technical assistance, capacity building and policy.

And another opportunity is as part of the national strategy, there was also a declaration from the regulators to stop informal insurance like activities. And one of the formalization path is if they formalize their in-house informal insurance, they can put up their own MBA or they can put up their own CIS or commercial insurance company. And one of the significant opportunities as well is that there are available mobile technology already in delivering microinsurance products. And Philippines being like texting capital of the world now with more than 100% penetration of cell phones, the use of mobile phone is just widespread. That can be capitalized also in terms of pursuing the program. But there were challenges also that were identified during the diagnostic phase in 2014. I think everyone knows that Philippines is very dispersed with more than 7,100 islands.

And a lot of low income households also are living in hard to reach and conflict areas now. And even among microinsurance of the microinsurance during that time, we have noticed a low insurance awareness and negative perception also about microinsurance due to cultural biases now. And another challenge is that during the time, the commercial insurance has already seen also the opportunity in the low income sector in terms of providing microinsurance. So the competition is bigger and we’ve also seen uneven growth of performance of Mi-MBAs during the time. Of course, not everyone are performing well. And of course, there’s a limited data capture system that can be used by the microinsurance MBAs when they actually expand now. And based on this diagnostic data, the Philippine, ICMIF, the Philippines Mi-MBAs decided that the strategic direction would be to focus on the microinsurance MBAs, because of the distinct advantage already of serving the low income households and they were the leader in the industry during the time.

And aside from that, the approach also is adopting the whole sector, because the collective viability of the microinsurance MBAs is essential in terms of driving and sustaining the growth when we talk about 5-5-5. And another one is that since the network organization of the Mi-MBAs, ICMIF then said that we can appoint RIMANSI as the overall program manager in the Philippines. And the core program should be on capacity building while looking at expanding. We should look at also at building capacities to the MBAs now, providing technical financial assistance planning and helping towards implementation now. So based on this diagnostic information and the strategic decision, the Philippines developed this program strategy aligned with the 5-5-5, and it’s called 1-5-5 program strategy. That’s achieving 1 million new mutual microinsurance members, covering 5 million lives because of the family insurance that’s being provided to the members in the period of 5 years now.

And basically in terms of expanding the outreach, we thought that MBAs should be helpful in terms of improving their operational efficiency. So these are the objectives that were set out now in supporting the 5-5-5 programs in the Philippines now looking at the distribution channels, developing new products, supporting the upgrade of management information systems now, and provide also the opportunities. When they expand, they should be ready in terms of their data capture, in terms of their technical and management capability. And of course, operating manuals. And when they expand, they expand also their funds. And also they should be ready also to look at investment opportunities that will maximize their returns in terms of pool investments. And of course, it was also agreed that we’d like to continue creating new microinsurance MBAs, so basically the 5-5-5 program.

Aside from that country diagnostic, we did some individual MBA level performance evaluation, and then feed this into the long-term planning. And we help also MBAs enhance their existing products to become more attractive and then develop new optional products, credit life insurance products and even overage insurance products. This 5-5-5 also made possible the creation of an investment pool among the microinsurance MBAs. So we call it the unit investment trust fund. We partner with the top investment house here in the country, and this is now being offered solely for the Microinsurance MBAs now. So far in the past three years, it has provided the MBAs with about 13% returns. So it’s more than 4% a year. So it’s been very helpful in terms of maximizing the returns, investment returns, on the MBAs now.

So we did also develop some governance courses, financial management courses now to help the MBAs in their expansion programs. And we also piloted the delivery of microinsurance to non-traditional distribution channels. So in the Philippines here, basically the sector developed through partnering with MFIs in cooperatives for the Mi-MBAs in terms of the distribution channels. So that’s the traditional for them, but the non-traditional distribution channels, you look at the conditional cash transfer beneficiaries of the government, local government units, workers, not church workers, and even some community savings and loans associations and other organized groups in the community. Now, we also ventured into developing data… Basic common microinsurance MBA common platform, and we call it e-mutuals, and this is now being rolled out to some of the MBAs. And of course, one of the challenges internally by Mi-MBAs is their ability to maintain internal auditors because of their capped operating expense.

So they actually outsource internal audit services. So what we did is to develop this framework, and then this can be customized to whoever is the internal audit to be engaged by the MBAs now. So that’s one area. And then we’re looking at the literacy and the awareness in terms of the MBA and the product. So we develop this member education strategy. Looking at the developing modules, five modules with 19 sessions, and then 13 tools including about 40 visual aids inducing local MBA advocates to deliver member education in communities. And also we’re very happy about the results and this pilot in some MBAs have also given some good results. So we’re happy with this member education strategy. And of course, in terms of the mobile application side, we also started developing a wide labeled microinsurance MBA mobile application that looks at very basic functionalities now. Capturing the membership profile, looking at their payment records, their claims records and then laxation and member engagement now.

So we’re looking at enhancing this in the future and integrating eMoney for example, and disaster related information. And also one of the key areas that we have developed under this 5-5-5 program is the enterprise risk management framework, a generic one that can be the base of the MBA to develop their own system now. So for the results, I think one of the challenges in the implementation is actually determining how can you attribute increases in outreach to the 5-5-5 program? So we studied the outreach for the past years and we agreed that 8% will be the organic growth for the Philippines. And in excess of that, we’ll attribute to the 5-5-5 program now. So basically, after five years, we have seen that 1.9 million, or more than 1.9 million, new members were enrolled in the MBAs now. And since family life insurance, it impacted about 9.8 million also insured individuals.

And we have generated also more than $500,000 in terms of funds, locally funded like Citi Foundation, of course CARD MRI, Peace & Equity Foundation. And of course, through the ICMIF memberships, focus on Thrivent and Zenrosai. So when we look at the cost now, in terms of the outreach, the funding cost per insured is about 27 cents per US dollar. And if you look at the funding cost per life, it’s very small. It’s 0.05 cents for a US dollar.

So where are we now in the Philippines? So quarter 3 2021, reports from the Insurance Commission is that about 60% of the almost 49 million lives insured by microinsurance is being provided by the microinsurance MBAs now. So as you can see in this table, now we have 18 microinsurance MBA members and partners. And definitely 2020, the pandemic struck and membership went down. And then it recovered in 2021 in terms of membership and premiums. But I think very important metric here is that in terms of benefits, the microinsurance MBAs in the Philippines pay about $140,000 now every day for an average also of 284 families. So that’s it for the Philippines. Back to you, thank you and good afternoon, everyone.

Ahila Devi:

Very good morning to all. So we are thankful to AOA and ICMIF Foundation for giving this opportunity. So I will share my experience. I’m Ahila from DHAN Foundation India.

So DHAN Foundation is one of the Pioneer NGO in India. Our overarching goal is poverty eradication. We are in the 25 years of our celebration this year. The DHAN Foundation is based on the Gandhian Principle. It’s initiated on the Gandhian birthday, October 2nd. The DHAN Foundation is the enabling organization. Here, our professionals are working at the grassroot as the enablers, and we seen community as the doer and they’re the drivers of the change. So we have seen the community, not only as a state beneficiary, we have seen as they are stakeholders. And also we are building on our development strategies, building on from our heritage and local wisdom. And one of our values is collaborations. Since poverty is a complex phenomena, we are collaborated with government, corporate and other development stakeholders for convergence. So here, our reaches, we are working in 14 states in India, 88 districts and 17,368 villages.

And we are covering nearly 2.43 million poor people over all India. And we have initiated people institutions, which are all developed, owned and managed by the community themselves. So far, 353 people institutions were initiated. And also, we are working with the different segments of poor people, so that we have called as their primary self-help groups. So far, we have promoted 71,320 primary groups. One of the USB of DHAN is every year during October 2nd Foundation Day, the people themselves come out of… Self declared that they are out of poverty. That is not only based on the economic criteria, but it’s a combination of variables, the economic conditions, three times food shelter and also their satisfaction level happiness index. So based on that, the member declared out of our poverty. So last year, nearly even in that COVID also, 15,798 people declared that.

So cumulatively, nearly 527,000 people declared out of poverty. So the community institutions, we are working with… The community institutions are promoted by the low income households, small and marginal farmers, farm laborers, fishermen, small traders and so on. They are the economically weaker sections and the community institutions are owned and governed by the local communities. Here, we can see that in the 25 years of experience, the mutuality self-help and self reliance are the principles of the self-help group. So they bounded them very interestingly and also very strongly from the inception of the group itself. And the other technical support and human resources are provided by DHAN. So here, in the focus of the economic empowerment, we are focusing on development finance. We call the script that is providing package of financial services in one roof. So not only insurance, we are encouraging them to do savings, credit remittance, insurance, pension and transaction. So here, our mantra is savings first; credit next; insurance is must; pension is the best. So then only we could be able to addressing comprehensively the risk and vulnerabilities of the poor people. And another thing is the center for financial literacy that plays a major role for reaching out larger masses with the microinsurance focus.

Here, the uniqueness of DHAN is social capital. That is we call as a nesting institution. So each institution at each level are independent, as well as interdependent to play their major roles. Here, the federation collective structure are binding people together for practice of mutuality. So here, the social capital only provides the foundation for the sustainability. So even after we trial off any donor, even the DHAN Foundation, the people institution themselves will take care of themselves. So the social capital is the foundation. Second one is the enabling model. So in our institution, all products are community driven processes. They are enabling community on various themes. So they are involved from the inception, the bottom up approach. So the governance plays the major role in the community driven processes. Third one is the sustainability. The sustainability of community institutions by providing multiple products and services, appropriate services, viable business propositions and effective financial management, these are the core areas for the sustainability.

And fourth one is the holistic approach. So to address the poverty and also to address the family needs, our approach is the holistic approach. So we are providing the comprehensive risk management practices, which is the integral component of poverty eradication. So not only distributing the insurance, but we started with risk prevention and risk avoidance, risk reduction. So the comprehensive risk management practice is one of the core principle of our intervention.

So here in case of the mutual insurance, the DHAN strategy towards sustainable insurances. The community insurance involving the need based solutions evolved through community organization. For example, if you take the life insurance, we are working in the government entitlement model, as well as collaborated with corporate agency. In both model, lot of gaps are there. For example, above 68 cannot be enrolled under any types of products. But in our mutual model, that covers… Covering the entire life of the people, especially the poor people, which is very needed. So the need based solutions, which is competitive in market, is one of the uniqueness of our mutual.

Second one is funeral expenses, because the poor people need some amount for the last triad. So then from our mutual insurance, we can be able to provide funeral expenses. So these kind of things is the very uniqueness. Second one, in case of health mutual, if you take that… Even though they are having some health access through government institutions and also through government insurances, but they immediately require some amount for the incidental cost. So the health assistance not only covers the entire amount of packet expenditure, but it will take care of the timely money needed for even they have to access the hospital for that. They need some money. So that money is provided by the health mutual.

And another thing is not only providing the insurance as a risk preventing measures, we have conducted a lot of the outreach camps, the early diagnosis for NCD. And another thing is they are connected with virtual wellness center. These are some of the added advantage and uniqueness of health mutual. And third one is the premium is very affordable. Even during the COVID, lot of corporate agency and other companies in India, they have increased the premium more than 100%. But in our case, the premium is not changed for the last three years, even after COVID. So the affordable premium, and it’s the very simple processes. Our field staff itself, they have approached the people, the doorstep documentation, the claims are all settled. The very simple processes. That is very needed for poor and illiterate people. And third one is the financial soundness by way of transferring part of the risk through backup insurance with some insurance companies, as well as the re-insurance arrangement with people mutual.

And a very interesting thing is the residual surplus that retained at the institution level, they’re being used for the risk prevention measures for conducting health camps, running the community health programs. And another thing is the credibility and trust. So that is the foundation for the mutual insurance program. So under 5-5-5, we have two products. One is life mutual program irrespective of all upper age limit. Second one is health mutual program for secondary healthcare.

So the distinctive value addition that DHAN and ICMIF Foundation collaboration is. So it allows them to retain the mutuality. So from that fund in the last five years, we can able to do what is the ways we want to do with flexibility. Second one is it’s helpful for the infrastructure development. We have initiated the Mutual Call Center, which was very much useful during the COVID center. We could be able to connect the last mile… The member for deepening the activities, we can be able to ensure the 100% renewal during this period. And then in their client settlement, not only the insurance. And also we are connecting the people with the doctors during the COVID time. They can able to get the consultant and not only the health service and also our staffs, every day, they have to call 50 members. And they’re asking how are you? Whether your health is okay? Not only providing the health services, but also it gives that kind of the confident model, because they’re depressed during the lockdown.

So that kind of many in the non-financial things plays the major role, which binds the people together. Third one is the holistic approach and the comprehensive risk management. So the awareness rising and insurance literacy that in competency level of both governance and executive system. So the series of training program, capacity building program, to the insurance staff as well as our leaders so we could be able to reach more people. And as I rightly said, we are started with risk prevention, risk reduction and risk mitigation. So through call center, we could be able to ensure whether all the members got vaccinated during the COVID. So that kind of thing also able to possible because of that holistic approach. And another one is this support helped them for technical know how. For example, we could be able to do the communication with other, and also the technical support from Achemea Re and other people.

They have visited our institution and stayed with us for more than 15 days. That was also helpful to the product update and analysis and technical part. That was very much useful. We could be able to do with ICMIF collaboration only. And also it builds and co-created the national and international credibility on DHAN as a pioneer in mutual insurance in India. And during the visit of the ICMIF member, AOA member that motivated the staffs and leaders by knowing the various kind of the like-minded mutual institutions. And they’re also excited and they believed more on mutual product because of this support.

So here, the performance of our mutual insurance under ICMIF 5-5-5 is so we started in the first year with nearly 115,000 people under life and 92,000 under health. So totally, 208,000 under year one. And our clients are also nearly 452 claims, but it gradually increases. And year two, we reached 313,000. And year three, 541,000. And year four, 670,000. And year five, we have reached nearly 1 million people. And also the health clients also, both life and health clients also increased by that. And in the last year, we settled the 1,818 clients. And also we are working in 21 states of India and we promoted mutual federations, which are the specialized institution for deepening and advancing the social security masses.

So here, we can be able to see some of the uniqueness of mutual. One is we could be able to reach 1 million people with a male population of 454,000 and a female is 558,000. And the uniqueness of the mutual is we could be able to enroll more than 187,000 people, which are all excluded from the formal insurance system. So that is the need for the poor people. And here the claims settled in the last five years is nearly 4,787 claims under life to the tune of nearly $805,000. And the health claims are 3,248 with the $24,000 plus. And another uniqueness is the funeral expenses provided at that time of the last year is nearly $1.3 million. So that itself prevent the trap of our people. And from the residual surplus available at the mutual level, in the last year, they could able to conduct 127 health camps, outreach camps. And mainly for the diagnosis of the non-communicable diseases like diabetic, hypertension, cancer screening. So nearly 12,340 members were benefited through this healthy camps.

And another one is the very interesting thing is after the five years program, the risk reserve, that is the residual surplus lies with mutual is nearly $51,000. And people mutual is $31,000. So that itself paves the way for the sustainability. And also we could able to use the ICMIF Foundation funds very effectively. We are thankful to all the donors, all the members of ICMIF Foundation and AOA. Nearly the $0.7 million, not only that fund, we could be able to provide nearly three times of co-funding by DHAN. Both financial as well as the kind contribution. So if you calculated that the cost per policy is less than a dollar, but it makes a tremendous impact in the poor’s life.

So not only the financial impact. Because of the ICMIF Foundation, we could be able to do lot of non-financial impact also towards the collective growth. So some of the things are this fund allows the program to reach sustainability at local level as I already explained. Another thing is we could be able to develop and enhance our operational efficiency by way of transparent system and processes. So mainly the information and IT system, we could be able to develop the separate software for insurance, the call center concept with the wellness center and mobile lab to increase the member engagement and improve the efficiency at all level. Second one is we could be able to integrate mutual insurance element into wider DHAN collectives. So it brings the accountability at all levels, and not only at people mutual level. So the insurance become the integral component in every thematic program.

And the fourth one is the scale up and the move ahead from one level to another level. So we started with local level, federation level, then we reach the regional level. Now we move into the zonal level so that we could be able to see the scale up and the scale advantage at each level. And another thing is the collective strength and scale advantage that helps to practice the mutuality. Even during the COVID, the expression of mutuality by the poor people is still phenomenal. So they can be able to share the essentials. They have initiated the community kitchen. So that is the expression of mutuality and the soul of the mutual program, I would say that.

So what is the next phase because the mutuality is our responsibility? So we could able to see lot of opportunities are available. One is the increased awareness. Now people are becoming more financially conscious and vigilant of risk after the COVID. So in India, like countries, only 25% of the people are only insured. That also very low with poor people. And also in that very few mutual products are available in the market. So that itself, we create the opportunity for… We have the inherent demand. For example, DHAN, we are working with the 2.4 million people. So far, we have reached 1 million only. So the capturing and penetrating our own market. So we could be able to doubling the reach in the next phase, by providing mutual as then add-on product. So we could easily achieve additional 1 million people under mutual product.

Third one is the deepening the community resilience. Scaling up and deepening of mutual products for building community resilience. So the product update and reinsurance — that would be the focus — and a lot of opportunities are available. Fourth one is the internal capacity. So already we had a very good experience with the 5-5-5 project. And by using various strategies, we are having already available with scaling up model established with the defined processes and system. We know what works well, what needs to be improved, what needs to be created, what needs to be dropped. So that internal capacity helpful to reach more people with more efficience and effectively. So now I conclude with we are very thankful to ICMIF Foundation 5-5-5 project and AOA for giving this opportunity. So we are working with very economically weaker section and we have seen security is a fundamental, right? It’s not an option. So thank you so much. And we are looking forward to continue our journey together. Thank you so much.

 

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