Skip to main content
To the Workshops and Seminars list of events

Stakeholder workshops to present the findings of the Colombia diagnostic

Workshop Report: Final Workshops to Present Findings of Colombia Microinsurance Country Diagnostic

On August 4th and 5th, the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii), the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), member of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) Group, and the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia carried out two final workshops to present the findings and recommendations of the Colombia microinsurance country diagnostic. The country diagnostic was part of the activities of the joint IADB/A2ii Project “Implementation of Regulatory and Supervisory Standards for Microinsurance markets in LAC” that aims to increase the availability of sustainable (micro) insurance products tailored to the needs of the low-income population in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia (SFC) hosted the workshops in their headquarters in Bogotá. The first workshop on August 4th, counted with the participation of officials from the Insurance, Risks, Research and Development areas from SFC as well as officials from the Ministry of Finance (MF). The second workshop on August 5th was directed to stakeholders from the Colombian insurance market and counted with the presence of 101 representatives from insurance companies, NGOs, brokers associations, as well as different Ministries and other government institutions.  Both workshops counted with similar sessions which content is summarized below.
 
Mr. Gerardo Hernández, Superintendent from SFC, and Ms. Marike Brady, A2ii Executive director, opened the stakeholders workshop. Mr. Hernández welcomed to the participants and made a summary of measures that Colombian government have carried out on the last years to extend financial inclusion in the country. He also mentioned the importance of this project for SFC to continue with the work started by the Colombian insurance industry on microinsurance and as part of the permanent dialogue with the industry on the common goal to extend access to insurance in the country. Following, Ms. Marike Brady, remembered the evolution of concepts related to microinsurance until currently talk about a broader concept of access to insurance or responsible insurance, as well as, how policy and regulatory approaches had evolved in the last decade, to see in the recent years that each country develops its own a tailor-made approach and a unique solution to market development. She also highlighted the Colombian market characteristics which can configure a potential success on this objective, as it counts with: a supportive national policy framework on financial inclusion, an active market interested in serving new client segment, and a supervisor that has taken a leading role in creating an enabling environment for the market. Finally she emphasized that diagnostic process provides an opportunity for stakeholders to come together and build consensus on the basis of our findings and invite to participants to work on that sense.

Afterwards, Ms. Andrea Camargo, lead consultant and Ms. Clémence Tatin-Jaleran, senior consultant of the country diagnostic team, presented the main findings arising from the microinsurance country diagnostic. As an introduction to the discussion, the team presented what is considered microinsurance according the IAIS and FASECOLDA –Colombian association of insurance companies- and what is the difference between microinsurance and massive products, considering that if massive products are commonly accessible and affordable, microinsurance needs also to be tailor-made to the client needs. Talking about the findings, they highlighted a potential microinsurance market of 32.5 million of people and 5 million more in the future, from population who is moving from lower income segments due to the economic growth experienced in the country. They mentioned that even if statistics form Fasecolda are not consistent on criteria to define microinsurance and there are companies who don´t report to FASECOLDA, the analysis of market have been done with FASECOLDA data, as the only one available for this market.

They mentioned, that despite the sustainable growth of insurance penetration on the last years, they identified the Colombian market as a growing market, since it has a restricted variety of products, where life products counting for more than 95% of total.  They also highlighted the low claim ratio in all kind of products, with a 23.3% average claim ration and dissimilar renewal rates. They also highlighted the high operative costs reported by the industry and limited channels of distribution used currently, despite alternatives that regulation offer. They commented that most of microinsurance policies are complicate. On the demand side they mentioned, there is still room for diversification, as the target market mentioned in different studies they would like that other risks to be considered on coverage as robberies and unemployment, to count with insurance which extend coverage to their families and insurance with simple policies.  They mentioned the efforts made by the Colombian government to promote financial inclusion and some conditions established by law with that goal. However there are still some barriers that are limiting the offer as the massive commercialization is limited to banking offices, banking correspondents can´t sell insurance products, or other as the need clients fulfil AML/KYC rules when compensations are paid, as well as, legal gaps about responsibilities in front of individual clients in case group policies.

In a subsequent session, the country team opened the discussion to the participants, asking if they think they shall maintain the status quo in the industry or they think their institutions could do more to improve access and responsible insurance.  Some participants expressed that there is a need of mindset change among all institutions on the insurance chain to know and attend the low income segments. They also mentioned some government institution working on those segments have done request for proposal to insurance companies, for specific products for those segments and haven´t found interested companies. SFC representatives mentioned that they recognized the effort made by the industry to promote access to insurance, but also they believe there is need to do some adjustments to regulation to reduce barriers and reinforce value delivered to the clients through insurance coverage. Finally, some representatives agreed with the findings presented and expressed the need to work jointly.

Taking account all expressed in this session, Ms. Andrea Camargo, lead consultant and Ms. Clémence Tatin-Jaleran, senior consultant of the country diagnostic team, continued with the workshop presenting the country diagnostic recommendations, which confirmed ideas expressed by the audience. They summarized recommendation on 5 core ideas for all participants in the insurance value chain. The first core idea was referred to develop proportional regulation to remove the legal barriers to reduce costs of commercialization; to protect the consumers, through simplified policies and procedures and to better track the development of the microinsurance and massive insurance market.  The second core idea was in relation to promote a supply of valuable products for the consumer, through the proposal of adoption of good practices by all participants of the insurance value channel, designing tailor-made products, using available transaction platforms and commercialization channels,  developing lessons from past private-public partnerships, among others. The third core idea was focused on promote the adoption and use of insurance for the target population, especially through the proposal of extension of financial education programs and the inclusion of insurance on national strategies against natural risks.  

The fourth core idea was to increase the SFC capacities to implement proportional supervision to insurance companies attending microinsurance market, to reinforce its capacities to apply a supervision based on technical and social indicators and to promote its coordination role with other supervisory institutions related with this market.  And finally the fifth core idea was focused on consumer protection issues, through a self-regulation proposal to the industry, in order it established a conduct code for microinsurance, while in the other hand propose to consumer associations to work on specific measures for products directed to low income segments.   And finally the team emphasized the need of a permanent dialogue among all participants of insurance value chain to assure the transition to a more diversified and responsible insurance market

Date:
Monday, 4. August 2014 9:00 AM
Duration:
2 days
Location:
Bogotá, Colombia
Knowledge category:
Workshops and Seminars

Also in Workshops and Seminars

1 day

FIF Plenary Meeting

more
1 day

IAIS Market Conduct Working Group

more
1 day

A2ii-IDF Workshop on Risk Modelling for Insurance Supervisors

more
1 day

18th Consultative Forum

more
2 days

2023 Annual CAIR Conference

more
2 days

ASSAL-IAIS Regional Training Seminar for Insurance Supervisors

more
1 day

A2ii-RFPI/MEFIN-MiN Asia Regional Dialogue on "The Role of Insurance and Data in closing the Climate Risk Protection Gap"

more
2 days

A2ii-FSI-IAIS-SARB meeting for insurance supervisors from Sub-Saharan Africa

more
2 days

AITRI-A2ii-IAIS Workshop on Leveraging Technology for Better Supervision

more
1 day

A2ii-ASSAL-IAIS Regional Dialogue on Insurance and the Sustainable Development Goals

more
2 days

Inclusive Insurance in the Central and Eastern Europe and the Transcaucasian (CEET) region - Challenges and Potential Opportunities

more
2 days

IAIS-A2ii First Strategic Roundtable for Asian Supervisors

more
2 days

A2ii-FSI-IAIS-SARB Regional meeting for insurance supervisors from Sub-Saharan Africa

more
1 day

A2ii-ASSAL-IAIS First Strategic Roundtable for Latin American Supervisors

more
1 day

Sub-Saharan Africa Public Dialogue on InsurTech: Catalysing Access to Financial Services following Covid-19

more
1 day

IAIS-FSI-A2ii-SARB virtual seminar on cyber security and data protection in the insurance sector - Africa

more
1 day

IAIS-FSI-A2ii-AITRI virtual seminar on cyber security and data protection in the insurance sector - Asia

more
1 day

IAIS-FSI-A2ii-SARB virtual seminar on cyber security and data protection in the insurance sector - Africa

more
1 day

IAIS-FSI-A2ii-AITRI virtual seminar on cyber security and data protection in the insurance sector - Asia

more
1 day

A2ii-ASSAL webinar on "Insurance for MSMEs: The Protection Gap exposed by Covid-19"

more
5 days

Coping with Common Challenges in Developing Insurance Markets training program for insurance supervisors and regulators

more
3 days

FSI-AMF Regional Seminar on Pillar 2 and Risk-based Supervision

more
2 days

A2ii-SARB-IAIS Regional meeting for insurance supervisors from Sub-Saharan Africa

more
1 day

17th Consultative Forum on Climate and Disaster Risk for insurance supervisory authorities, insurance practitioners and policymakers “Climate and disaster risk: building resilience, bridging the protection gap in Asia”

more
2 days

Global Insurance Supervision Conference

more
2 days

A2ii 10-Year Anniversary Conference

more
2 days

Africa 3.0 - Using Tech to Seal the Insurance Gap

more
1 day

Roundtable on “Insurance for women: specific needs and inclusion”

more
2 days

16th Consultative Forum on Climate and Disaster Risk - Climate and disaster risk: building resilience, bridging the protection gap

more
1 day

15th Consultative Forum on Inclusive Insurance - Climate and disaster risk: building resilience, bridging the protection gap

more
1 day

14th Consultative Forum on InsurTech in Latin America

more
1 day

Supervisory Dialogue on the impact of informality on insurance markets - what supervisors can do

more
2 days

13th Consultative Forum on Mobile Insurance and InsurTech: rising to the regulatory challenge

more
1 day

12th Consultative Forum on InsurTech

more
1 day

11th Consultative Forum on microinsurance regulation “Scaling up insurance as a disaster resilience strategy for smallholder farmers in Latin America”

more
2 days

10th Consultative Forum on the topic of “Scaling up agricultural index insurance in Africa: Building disaster resilience of smallholder farmers”

more
1 day

9th Consultative Forum on the topic of “Exploring challenges in scaling up insurance as a disaster resilience strategy for smallholder farmers”

more
2 days

IAIS - A2ii-CIMA Mobile Insurance Conference

more
1 day

8th Consultative Forum on the topic of “Challenges and opportunities presented by alternative distribution channels”

more
1 day

7th Consultative Forum on the topic of “The role of mutuals, cooperatives and community-based organisations in inclusive insurance markets”

more
2 days

CIMA-A2ii Workshop on mobile insurance regulation

more
2 days

6th Consultative Forum in Marrakesh on the topic of "Innovative products for the emerging consumer"

more
1 day

5th Consultative Forum in Casablanca on the topic of "Consumer Education: Old questions, new thinking"

more
2 days

Policy Seminar - Consultative Forum on Microinsurance Regulation for Insurance Supervisory Authorities & Insurance Practitioners

more
2 days

Expert Symposium “Proportional regulatory approaches in inclusive insurance markets – Capturing what we learnt for the future”

more
1 day

3rd IAIS-MIN-A2ii Consultative Forum Mass and micro: Consumer protection challenges in inclusive insurance markets

more
2 days

Stakeholder workshops to present and discuss the Jamaica microinsurance country diagnostic findings

more
1 day

Challenges and opportunities in enhancing client value in insurance - the African experience with new technologies - 2nd Consultative Forum

more
2 days

Stakeholder workshops to present the findings of the Peru diagnostic

more
1 day

Microinsurance Regulation for Insurance Supervisory Authorities & Insurance Practitioners - Consultative Forum on "Business models, distribution and their regulatory"

more
1 day

Kick-off workshop for country mission in Jamaica, November 4, 2013, Kingston

more
2 days

Kick-off workshops for country mission in Colombia, October 17-18, 2013, Bogotá

more
2 days

Responsible Finance Forum IV – Consumer Protection in Emerging Insurance Markets

more
2 days

Seminar on Microinsurance Regulation for Supervisory Authorities

more
2 days

Regional Workshop for Supervisors from Latin America and the Caribbean

more
1 day

Policy Seminar on Access to Insurance, Tanzania

more
1 day

Workshop for regional regulators to make insurance work for the poor, Fiji

more
2 days

High – Level seminar on Micro-insurance Regulation for Supervisory Authorities

more
3 days

Policy Seminar on Access to Insurance for Supervisors, Regulators and Policy Makers

more
1 day

Regulators’ Workshop on Microinsurance

more
1 day

Policy Seminar on Access to Insurance for Regulators and Supervisors

more
3 days

Meeting on Microinsurance - Promoting Successful Regulatory and Supervisory Approaches for Increased Access to Insurance

more
1 day

Expert Round Table on the “G20 Financial Financial Inclusion Process"

more
2 days

International Conference: Enabling Microinsurance Markets "Overcoming the challenges for the insurance industry, regulators and supervisors"

more