InsurTech can address some big challenges: lack of consumer knowledge, lack of access to consumers, differing consumer needs, low trust, inexperienced customers and high-cost structures. However, InsurTechs tend to focus mainly on increasing access and lowering costs, and many are still stuck at the digitisation stage. There has been some movement away from MNOs, although there’s been a rise in partnerships with e-commerce and e-hailing platforms. Greater use of data and analytics includes machine learning and AI, chatbots, telematics and smart contracts.

For the final Expert Forum of 2019, our panel of experienced professionals revisited the 2014 Microinsurance Learning and Knowledge (MILK) Project which concluded: “Microinsurance is a business of doing good, and if done well, it is also good for the company’s bottom line.”

The challenges of climate change and the opportunities for financial inclusion, and particularly insurance, came under the spotlight at the recent European Microfinance Week, organised annually by the European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP), culminating in the European Microfinance Award.