Inclusive Insurance for low-income people is a crucial part of Financial Inclusion since most people in developing and transition countries live without any formal means of protecting against risks, such as illness, disability, death, harvest failure and loss of livestock or personal effects.

Financial education and the related “insurance literacy” plays an important role for the uptake of health insurance. Social marketing and communication can contribute to sensitization about the benefits of health insurance.

Local provision of health services. Clients who move around in a country or are internally displaced still often lose their coverage.

Know your customer: 

Get a solid understanding of the target population/customers and their social differentiation beyond socio-economic status. Include

• Local socio-political context

• Socio-cultural characteristics and attitudes (including gender aspects)

• Household and family structure

• Decision making patterns 

Know the context: The overall social health protection and health financing system of the country, including existing schemes, their service coverage.

Know the needs/ potential demand of the different population segments – Choose the appropriate healthcare providers who are accepted by the target populations and deliver quality services. Develop / influence the system appropriately. 

Know how to start: The webinar discussion highlighted that hospital cash can be a good place to start health coverage. When it works, and trust is established, the product can become more comprehensive.

Clear understanding on success: A large scheme (starting at 150,000 people), commercially viable for intermediary and insurance, delivering real value to low-income.

Three challenges:

• Finding good partners (with proper scale but also agile, like-minded, innovative) 
• Resources - Partners struggle with the costs upfront.  Partners are sometimes slow due to multiple parallel projects).
• Level of flexibility to follow the approach and learn together. Limited ability of partnership to leverage technical assistance.

Three things that made it work:

• Create strong bonds with partners (e.g. full-time project management, involve senior management)
• partner has a champion on the topic,
• social commitment and engage in the work on their own (being interested in commercial aspect is not enough)