Accident,sickness and health insurance for vulnerable groups: Lessons learnt from Ghana, Malawi and Uganda

As per the 2021 Landscape of Microinsurance Study, around 16.76 million people are covered under  inclusive health insurance in Africa which is the highest followed by other lines of business. Usually, people prefer to start with health insurance for improving their financial resilience as the impacts of health risks (of self and family members) are tangible. The COVID-19 pandemic in a way reinforced the need for health insurance and certainly heightened the awareness of the same; in some cases, it increased customers’ interest in acquiring health insurance.

For the past few years, VisionFund has been actively designing microinsurance products tailored to meet the needs of the clients they serve.  Over the years, it has been working with local insurers in providing coverage that is contextually appropriate for the community members where they work. With support from SCBF, VisionFund along with World Vision and Allianz Ghana piloted the provision of accident, sickness and health insurance for World Vision Savings groups in Ghana and Malawi in order to expand their outreach.

On 29 March 2023, SCBF, in collaboration with the VisionFund International, World Vision International, Allianz Ghana organised a webinar – to understand the experience and learnings from the pilots in Ghana and Malawi and how it compares to the loans and savings-bundled insurance product in Uganda.  Some of the key areas covered in the webinar were:

• Overview of the projects in Ghana, Malawi and Uganda – Learnings and how they were different from each other.
• Methodology adopted in each country for assessing the needs for insurance and setting it up for the savings group in the respective countries.
• Experiences and insights from each country; its role in expanding financial inclusion and what are the future plans