Originally published by ICMIF.
3 July 2025
Closing the protection gap in emerging markets remains one of the greatest challenges for the mutual insurance sector today. According to the ICMIF Global Mutual Market Share report, mutual insurers hold only 2.7% of the formal insurance market in these regions – a significant decline from over 4% a decade ago – while mutuals in developed economies maintain a steady share of more than 30%. This is despite the community-based cooperative model being overwhelmingly prevalent in emerging markets amongst the low-income and hard to reach population, providing valuable services driven by community needs.
One of the key reasons for this low penetration in emerging markets is the lack of know-how and support to effectively scale up existing informal insurance programmes. This is now being addressed through the creation of a South-to-South Technical Assistance platform by the ICMIF Foundation. For many years, mutual ICMIF members in the north, such as Achmea (Netherlands), Co-operators (Canada), P&V and BRS (Belgium) and Thrivent Financial (USA) have been providing technical support and training to mutuals in the south, with the ICMIF Foundation recently facilitating 20 such technical assistance assignments under the 5-5-5 Mutual Microinsurance Programme. Successful partners of the 5-5-5 Programme CARD MBA and MiMAP (Philippines) and Dhan Foundation (India) are now the first technical assistance providers to the ICMIF Foundation from the South.
The South-to-South Technical Assistance (TA) platform enables peer learning and capacity building among mutuals in the Global South with the common objective of building sustainable, scalable, and impactful mutual microinsurance programmes. This can be provided in country as well as across continents, and started with the formation of the ICMIF Foundation’s Microinsurance Committee in 2022 comprising of Dr Aris Alip (Chair), CARD MRI (Philippines); Dr Nelson Kuria, CIC Insurance (Kenya); and Mr Vasimalai, Dhan Foundation (India), all of whom are pioneers in mutual microinsurance and have decades of experience successfully serving the needs of low-income communities. The Microinsurance Committee’s primary role is to provide guidance to the IIC projects and ongoing oversight on their performance. This mentoring by the committee over Year One has enabled project partners to strengthen their strategies and build strong foundations that will provide long term benefits to the sustainability and impact of their microinsurance programmes.
Through the funding available under the UNDP ICMIF Insurance Innovation Challenge (IIC) provided by ICMIF members and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), technical assistance partnerships have been developed between CARD MBA and CIC Kenya and CIC Malawi, Dhan Foundation with Sansa Life Insurance Company (Sri Lanka) and MiMAP with SEDMFI MBA (Philippines). As well as providing challenging and meaningful assignments to staff, the overriding aim is to build long-term partnerships of learning between mutual organisations which are striving to address the protection gap in their countries.
South to South technical assistance under the IIC
In September 2024, SANASA Life Insurance (Sri Lanka) participated in DHAN Foundation’s Mutual Microinsurance Course in Madurai, India. The course highlighted the role of mutual microinsurance in protecting rural and elderly populations, which are often excluded from formal systems.
Speaking about his organisation’s participation, P.G. Asanka Gayan, Senior Manager – Life Operations, Sanasa Life (Sri Lanka) said: “I believe that the technical assistance from the DHAN Foundation will greatly benefit SANASA by promoting the insurance concept among less-privileged communities and supporting mutual insurance initiatives to enhance social responsibility.”
Discussions between SANASA Life and DHAN Foundation are ongoing toward monitoring the application of lessons from the training and exploring continued technical support.
In January 2025, a delegation from CIC Insurance Group (Kenya) and Co-operative Life Assurance Ltd. (CIC Malawi) undertook a study visit to CARD MBA in the Philippines, explored CARD MRI’s poverty eradication mission and CARD MBA’s mutual microinsurance model including product design, governance, operations, and member engagement through field visits and interviews.
Zachary Wambugu, CIC Managing Director (Malawi), shared: “This visit has provided profound insights into how simplicity in product development, leadership, and feedback-driven innovation can transform microinsurance. CARD MBA’s teamwork culture and strong alignment of mission and values demonstrate the immense power of collaboration and shared purpose.”
Michael Mugo, CIC Microinsurance Company Principal Officer (Kenya) added, “We were able to learn how to embrace partnerships and take advantage of the ecosystem—leveraging our heritage to create and expand impact within our setup. We also learned about simplified product development, and of course, processes that are very accessible and truly intended to serve the customer.”
Following this exposure visit, CIC Insurance Company (Kenya) hosted a CARD MBA delegation in March 2025. The visit included a strategic review of CIC’s CoopCare Micro Health product, actuarial support, and assessments of operations, marketing and distribution strategies, claims process, and internal management information flow. This collaboration is helping CIC develop a roadmap to expand mutual health coverage across Kenya through the IIC project and ensure its sustainability. After the visit, CIC and CARD MBA agreed to hold monthly calls to follow up on technical areas and next steps. As Vener Abellera, President and General Manager, CARD MRI shared: “Through our monthly calls with CIC, we continue sharing experiences and identifying practical next steps for CIC Insurance Group to improve mutual microinsurance delivery.”
Sabbir Patel, CEO of The ICMIF Foundation added “The South-to-South technical assistance is something we, as part of the mutual network of ICMIF, are able to uniquely provide, the insights, mentoring and expertise that is being made available have proved to be invaluable throughout year one of the projects”.
The ICMIF Foundation’s South-to-South TA Platform is founded on the belief that mutuals – rooted in communities – are uniquely positioned to drive inclusive insurance. These partnerships emphasise building strong foundations for lasting impact rather than seeking short-term results. With mutuals helping mutuals, the movement continues to grow—delivering real and impactful change across the Global South.
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If you are interested in providing technical assistance to the ICMIF Foundation’s projects, please contact Allelie Mojica.
Source: ICMIF Foundation South-to-South Technical Assistance Platform launched through the UNDP–ICMIF IIC Programme – ICMIF, 3 July 2025.