Faced with prejudice and inequalities that control almost every aspect of their lives, women are often overlooked and undervalued, which can directly affect their social and personal development, as well as their livelihoods. The gender equality gap has, for the most part, always been at play; however, with the advent of the pandemic these inequalities have been heightened, and progress has been pushed back, with many women being drawn back into unpaid care work.
Efforts are continually being made to address this imbalance, and many initiatives are focused on reversing the impact that Covid has had on the lives of women. Inspired by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal SDG 5, which aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, one such route to delivering equality is access to financial services – and effective, relevant insurance products and services in particular.
Driving inclusion is a key focus of the Microinsurance Network (MiN) and through our work with members and the ecosystem at-large we are seeing first-hand how inclusive insurance can play an integral role in building women's resilience.
During the recent International Conference on Inclusive Insurance (ICII) session Making Insurance Work for Women, Sarah Ebrahimi of the Women’s Insurance Program at the IFC highlighted how “realising the full potential of the women’s insurance market will create impact far beyond the insurer’s bottom line... It will increase innovation, women’s economic empowerment, and economic growth.”
The benefits don’t stop there. As Liza Garay-de Vaubernier, Global Head of ESG Business Development and Outreach of the AXA Group added, “Women are the centre of an entire ecosystem… and grasping the opportunity of women as clients can be valuable for top line growth.”
Achieving this, however, requires women having access to the right tools – both digital and educational; unfortunately, for women in developing countries, this isn’t always possible.
Untapped opportunities
The global women’s insurance market is an opportunity – a USD 1.7 trillion-dollar opportunity to be precise. Combine this with research that suggests women are more risk-averse than men, more willing to spend money on insurance, plus the fact that many are decision-makers in their households, and you have a potential recipe for success.
And yet insurance products are not actively tailored to meet women’s specific needs – another point discussed in detail at the ICII. Insurers are not seeing women – in particular those on low incomes – as valuable, or potential clients.
Much of the reluctance to explore this segment of the market is due to the multiple barriers faced by women, many of which are out of their control, such as not owning a mobile phone, having limited access to the internet, no proof of ID, or little-to-no financial education.
These digital and educational elements are vital for women to understand and access insurance – and therefore build resilience. With a safety net to fall back on in times of need, women will be able to protect themselves – and their dependents – with financial support. Without the right access to digital and financial literacy tools, women’s access to insurance remains much lower than men’s.
Market examples
Globally, women are prepared to pay for insurance; however, as mentioned above, for them to access this protection they need the right tools and financial education. Initiatives such as the SheForShield programme in Nigeria, which was set up following a 2015 report by AXA and IFC on the untapped women’s insurance market, is one such example of what insurers are doing to fully understand the emerging female customer.
The mission of the project is to enable women to grow, add value to their lives, and help them mitigate risk, Oyinkansola Adewunmi, Lead, Distribution Support at AXA Mansard in Nigeria explained during the ICII. It also aims to change women’s insurance attitudes, develop gender-sensitive distribution models, and to have social targets that align with women’s core concerns.
As Adewunmi explained, the AXA and IFC report exposed a gap in terms of insurance services available to women entrepreneurs. The solution, Adewunmi said, was to “offer solutions that would enhance and protect women businesses, and then expand to cover their other insurance needs…the goal is for women to see insurers as partners.”
Having highlighted the buying patterns and products that women are interested in, it was noted how women wished to be financially independent and empowered, and that they wanted self-respect within their homes and community, Adewunmi explained.
The solution, it was decided, was to position products as more female-friendly. To achieve this, the SHE (Super Hero Everyday) initiative was launched. With women in mind, the initiative began with the launch of a car insurance product – one that women would feel more comfortable purchasing. In the long term, this would not only help insurers gain the trust of their female policyholders, but it would mean that whenever a need arose in their network of female policyholders, they would be the insurer of choice to ultimately help find a solution.
Being able to provide insurance services such as this, however, requires a full understanding of the product offering. This is where financial literacy skills come into play and is a key element for helping policyholders make better informed financial decisions.
With access to education often a barrier for women, online courses are, in this context, proving useful – especially when they offer learning opportunities at a time that is convenient for them. In Mexico, for example, Project Minerva, an online training course, has been launched to provide an opportunity for women to develop their financial literacy skills, from understanding risk prevention to managing income, understanding different financial products and even protecting themselves from fraud. The course even provides details on how to purchase insurance products.
Project Minerva has amassed more than 48,000 female enrollees – which speaks for itself how programmes like this add tangible value and are in demand. But its value goes even deeper than this. As Norma Rosas, Director of Asociación Mexicana de Instituciones de Seguros (AMIS) explained during a MiN Expert Forum on “Supporting women’s economic empowerment in insurance” last year, including women in financial culture means we can better identify how to support women further in their own development, from finding childcare to having the equipment needed to work from home.
Female leads
Support in this sector comes in all shapes and sizes, and a key element of driving up female policyholders – and therefore helping improve the financial stability of women around the world – means making some changes from within the industry. The first step for this is encouraging more women to be part of sales teams.
In 2019, research from Swiss Re highlighted that only 10% of CEOs and 8% of Board Chairs in the re/insurance industry were women; and yet having women in leading roles at insurance firms opens up barriers to access women as emerging customers. As Garay-de Vaubernier pointed out, “when there are more women in the distribution force, there tend to be more women clients.”
Bringing more women back to the workforce is a focus of the B20 Women Empowerment Task Force. During the aforementioned Expert Forum, Doris Bisaro, Diversity and Inclusion Manager at Generali explained how this can be achieved by expanding science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and upskilling women, as well as developing and funding programmes that eliminate physical and cultural barriers and expectations that hinder their access to opportunity.
Donors can certainly play a part in enabling this, by supporting projects that focus on female empowerment, progression and inclusion. Examples of such progress can be seen in several Generali projects, including the “Lioness” acceleration programme, which targets group female senior managers to equip them with key skills, and the “Elevate Circles” project, which aims to improve the executive presence of female managers to prepare the next generation of female leaders. It is, as Bisaro said, all about closing the digital gap and developing women’s confidence and awareness so they can transition to new roles.
Susan Neely, President and CEO at the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), also shared this belief during the Forum. As Neely explained, with more diverse teams, insurers are better able to serve communities. Having more women visible in leadership roles, Neely said, means better seeing and understanding of how women lead, which ultimately helps break down stereotypes that so often act as a barrier for women’s full inclusion.
Economic independence
Reinforcing women’s rights, helping them make choices and access education are the pillars that make up the framework of longstanding MiN member Women’s World Banking (WWB). Set up in 1975, the oraganisation was based on the idea that economic independence can empower women in insurance to become supervisors, and to lead.
Scholarships to the WWB Leadership Programme provide training and follow-up coaching for supervisors – and while developing women’s confidence and abilities, it helps increase women’s access to insurance further down the line.
Encouraging women to be interested in a career in insurance, however, needs role models and mentors. Thankfully, there are inspirational women in finance sharing their experiences and their knowledge; from Delphine Traoré, CEO of Allianz Africa, to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Finance Minister. Traoré was herself inspired by Okonjo-Iweala, and she knows first-hand and appreciates how important a role confidence plays in women reaching their ambitions.
As Traoré explained in a recent interview, building self-confidence involves “taking your seat at the table… and speaking up when you have the chance”. In what is viewed as a male-dominated industry, Traoré is helping women build their confidence by providing a space where they can share their experiences and successes. This challenge is being addressed through the Allianz Africa for Women Conference, which offers talented women an opportunity to network and support one another via collaboration, training, boosting of self-confidence and career development.
The bottom line
Although it is widely known and understood that gender and cultural diversity is better for business – by helping increase the bottom line and ensuring inclusion for all – promoting gender equality in insurance is more than that. It is about identifying individual needs and delivering products that are tailored to support women in need, ensuring the end-consumer has a mechanism to avoid falling back into poverty in the aftermath of shock events and crises.
With SDG 5 a part of the framework that will see our future as one that is both sustainable and economical, more insurers and donors are looking at how they can reach women from different markets and geographies to help them build their resilience through inclusive insurance.
However, with a lack of information on what women need – and data on who insurers are actively reaching – scaling up gender-sensitive products simply cannot progress to where it needs to be.
But there are examples that the microinsurance community can draw on, whether this is from women-only car insurance – like the First for Women car insurance initiative in South Africa – which is known to tailor marketing and take into consideration datasets that show how women have fewer accidents and are therefore less likely to make a claim.
But as Ebrahimi has pointed out, “a women’s market approach is so much more diverse than just market research, launching a product and seeing what happens.” It is about removing barriers to women’s full participation in insurance; and to do that understanding their needs is key.
For the microinsurance industry, there are many paths to explore; from leaning on the empowering model of female financial inclusion displayed by many microfinance institutions (MFIs) to establish microfinance products, to becoming greater players in delivering the elements needed for women to access insurance. But however donors or those working in financial institutions decide to progress forward, it is crucial to bear in mind that when done correctly, insurance can be a key mechanism for women’s economic empowerment, and building their resilience too.
With International Women’s Day just around the corner, we will be taking a closer look at some of the crucial issues around this in the coming weeks.