Agenda

Hosted by International Labour Organisation

Speaker:

Pranav Prashad
Senior Technical Officer, ILO's Impact Insurance Facility, Switzerland

Lisa Morgan
Technical Specialist, Actuary, ILO's Impact Insurance Facility, Switzerland

TBC

Facilitator:

Craig Churchill
Chief - Social Finance, ILO, Switzerland

This pre-conference session aims at providing an introduction to key challenges and opportunities of inclusive insurance. 

The session will familiarise the participants with the 'keys' to viable, valuable and impactful inclusive insurance products and improving the customer engagement experience, including client centric product design, successful partnerships across the insurance value chain and relevant loss assessment and settlement processes.  

Further, it will strive to assist the participants to appreciate the contribution of  inclusive insurance to development and to the global sustainable development goals.  

In addition, it will create a space to network, especially among those who are new to the topic as well as to the International Conference on Inclusive Insurance.

Hosted by a2ii, CGAP, IAIS and the Microinsurance Network

Speaker:

Aisha Bashir 
Head of Microinsurance, National Insurance Commission , Nigeria

Sofia Bibi
Assistant Director  - Insurance Division, Securities and Exchange Commission, Pakistan

Teresa O. Nyatuka
Principal Planning Office, Insurance Regulatory Authority, Kenya

Matthew Genazzini
Executive Director, MiN, Luxembourg

Shina Gbadegesin - TBC
Managing Director, GOXI, Nigeria

Ovia Tuhairwe
CEO, Radiant Yacu, Rwanda
 

Facilitator:

Anaar Kara
Senior Financial Sector Specialist, CGAP/A2ii, France

Over 30 jurisdictions — mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia — have introduced standalone or dedicated licensing frameworks for microinsurance providers in the past two decades. These frameworks aim to attract new entrants, such as microfinance institutions, mutuals, cooperatives, and community-based insurers, into markets that conventional insurers have historically overlooked. Yet the results have been uneven. Where standalone licenses have worked well — as in the Philippines, where 27 Microinsurance Mutual Benefit Associations (MiMBAs) have reached over 30 million low-income Filipinos — the license has been embedded in a broader ecosystem of trusted distribution networks, proportionate regulation, and robust performance monitoring. Where uptake has been weak, the causes often trace back to misaligned regulatory requirements or insufficient incentives.

This workshop convenes insurance supervisors, standalone providers, conventional insurers, and technical experts to examine the design and implementation of standalone licensing frameworks in an interactive, practice-oriented format. Participants will explore what makes these frameworks effective, where they fall short, and how data collection and monitoring can be strengthened to guide ongoing regulatory calibration. The workshop draws directly on CGAP's comparative research on standalone licenses across jurisdictions and on fresh data insights from MiN’s Landscape Report to generate actionable insights that participants can apply in their own contexts. 

Hosted by FinProbity Solutions

Speaker:

Lorenzo Chan
CEO, Pioneer Insurance Group, Philippines

Tom Gitogo
Group Managing Director, Britam, Kenya

Marc Rugenera
CEO, Radiant Insurance, Rwanda

Laura Elena  Rosado
Head Strategy Performance Measurement, AXA, France

Ovia Tuhairwe
CEO, Radiant Yacu, Rwanda

Jacobeth Barno
CEP, APA Microinsurance, Kenya

Facilitator:

Lemmy Manje
CEO and Founder, FinProbity Solutions, Zambia

Inclusive insurance remains a major untapped opportunity in developing markets. However, several challenges persist.

• Organisational structure and culture: Many insurers lack the organisational structures and culture needed to drive innovation and scale up inclusive insurance.
• Leadership buy-in: Senior executives often expect quick returns and may withdraw support if products do not deliver rapid results.
• Client-centric focus: insufficient investment in market research and client-centred product development limits outreach to underserved segments.
• Distribution: Heavy reliance on traditional brokers and agents hinders access to mass markets, so alternative channels are needed.
• Technical capacity: There is a shortage of expertise in designing and managing inclusive, client-centric insurance products.

Overcoming these barriers requires stronger organisational commitment, investment in innovation, and targeted capacity building.

This half-day interactive work retreat for CEOs and senior executives interested in expanding their investments and impact in inclusive insurance is held before the conference. The session will include:

• Close-up presentations from leading practitioners
• New interactive business simulation on corporate management and business model canvas creation for inclusive insurance.
• Small group discussions will cover customer centricity, innovative distribution, organisational development, institutional culture, sales and uptake strategies, technology, claims management and product development. 

Hosted by UNDP Insurance & Risk Finance Facility

Speaker:

Joseph Museraka
Representative, Ministry of Agriculture, Rwanda

Getachew Mekonnin
Head of RFSU, Ministry of Agriculture, Ethiopia

Munya Daka
Chief Executive Officer, Agriculture Insurance Consortium (AIC), Uganda

Mercy Matata
Technical Lead,  TAIC, Tanzania

TBC

Facilitator:

Enock Sing’oei
Agricultural Insurance Specialist, UNDP Insurance and Risk Finance Facility, Kenya

Over 500 million smallholder farmers are highly exposed to climate risks, yet most lack access to financial protection. Institutionalising agricultural insurance by integrating it into government policies, regulations, programmes and financing is critical to scaling up solutions that build resilience, protect livelihoods and safeguard food systems.

This interactive session presents a pathway from concept to implementation, drawing on the Financial Resilience in Agriculture (FRA) approach of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and evidence from over 20 countries. The session explores how governments can align the four pillars of policy, regulation, programmes and financing into a coordinated strategy and translates this into practical approaches for designing and delivering agricultural insurance integrated within public programmes. The session is supported by a compendium of 14 global case studies from the Global North and South.

Participants will apply a six-domain readiness framework to identify suitable public programmes and assess their potential to strengthen delivery, generating demand signals to inform the design of insurance solutions. Through hands-on exercises using composite country cases, participants will analyse data and demand, stress-test delivery systems and map the institutional configuration required for effective integration.

The institutionalisation approach is informed by a compendium of 14 global case studies. Participants will gain an understanding of the institutionalisation framework, along with practical insights into how different countries are designing and delivering integrated agricultural insurance models.

The session combines technical guidance with real-world experience from countries that have advanced institutionalisation through policy reform, regulatory innovation and public–private partnerships. There will be a panel discussion featuring government and insurance practitioners from Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda, moderated by UNDP.

Speaker:

Representative of the Government of Rwanda (TBC)

Representative of the Rwanda Organizing Committee (TBC)

Renate Bleich
Chair, Munich Re Foundation, Germany

Laura Elena Rosado
Interims Chair of the Board, Microinsurance Network

Facilitator:

TBC

Hosted by Microinsurance Network

Speaker:

Hope Murera
CEO, Zep Re, Kenya

Lorenzo Chan
CEO, Pioneer Insurance, Philippines

Miguel Solana
Team Lead, Insurance and Risk Finance Facility, UNDP, Turkey

Facilitator:

Matthew Genazzini
Executive Director, Microinsurance Network, Luxembourg

After years of anticipating a convergence of risks across multiple domains, our global reality has shifted from expectation to ‘here and now’ shocks of unprecedented severity. Climate shocks, price volatility and geopolitical tensions are increasingly visible at the household level, translating into lost income, disrupted livelihoods, food insecurity and delayed healthcare. These pressures compound, eroding resilience and pushing vulnerable households into repeated cycles of loss and recovery.

Meanwhile, as international cooperation becomes more pragmatic, national governments are being pushed to move beyond reactive, debt-led responses, towards more structured risk management approaches, including macro-level insurance. But while inequality continues to aggravate vulnerability, immediate pressures crowd out longer-term priorities.

In this context, private insurers are seeking to expand their role with market-based solutions. Delivering tangible protection, however, depends on public–private partnerships and models of collaboration that link insurers with distribution channels to reach scale and enhance value.

Against this backdrop, this plenary will draw on preliminary insights from MiN’s 2026–2027 Landscape of Microinsurance Report to assess the current global coverage of microinsurance products, and discuss how the sector is adapting to deliver protection in response to increasingly interconnected risks that are reshaping household vulnerabilities. 

The session will examine the growing relevance of solutions that, beyond traditional coverage for material damage, seek to address income loss, livelihood sustainability, and the protection needs of food providers, such as farmers and fisherfolk. It will also consider the expanding role of parametric and hybrid approaches in improving access.

We aim to help frame the discussions at the International Conference on Inclusive Insurance 2026 over the week, and show that, as new pressures emerge and longstanding vulnerabilities persist, inclusive insurance is evolving with them.

Speaker:

TBC

Facilitator:

TBC

The conference will be hosted by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN), the National Bank of Rwanda (NBR), Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR), Rwanda Insurers Association (ASSAR), and Rwanda Insurance Brokers Association (RIBA). This session will present the initiatives already underway in the Rwandan market to increase insurance outreach. Adopting a dynamic format, it will emphasise management models, channel development and maintenance, and technological advances that provide support.

Hosted by FSD Africa

Speaker:

Rita Apau
Head of Innovation, National Insurance Commission, Ghana

Ingrid Cyuzuzo 
Director Financial Inclusion, National Bank of Rwanda, Rwanda

Sarathy Srinivas
Co-Founder, WRMS Global, Rwanda

Facilitator:

Elias Omondi
Principal, FSD Africa, Kenya

The session will address the following two questions:

1. What makes a regulatory sandbox an effective tool for enabling inclusive insurance innovation?
2. Is a regulatory sandbox the right tool for every context? 

Regulatory sandboxes have become central to inclusive insurance policy frameworks. Many supervisors in emerging markets view them as instruments for encouraging innovation, learning from the market and signalling an openness to new business models. However, after a decade of sandboxes, the question remains: are they truly delivering value, and to whom? Or are they a solution that is reached for too quickly?

This session will examine what makes sandboxes effective and how design, implementation and context can undermine their potential. It will explore the core design tensions, such as the strain on supervisory teams' resources, and the risk of sandboxes becoming well-intentioned instruments that fail to gain traction or transition firms into the mainstream market.

The session will bring together a sandbox participant and regulators with hands-on experience of sandboxes. The participant will reflect on their experience of sandboxes and provide an overview of the key factors for success. This will be followed by the regulators providing candid reflections on what worked with sandboxes, what they would do differently and how sandboxes fit within a broader toolkit for enabling inclusive innovation.

Hosted by Women's World Banking

Speaker:

Andrea Camargo 
Inclusive Risk Financing Programmes Lead, World Food Programme, Italy

Reema Nanavaty 
Director, Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), India

Paola Cuadros 
Head of Growth, MiCRO, Colombia

Facilitator:

Angela Wambugu
Director, Africa Advisory Services, Women's World Banking, Kenya
 

Women represent one of the largest untapped opportunities in insurance, with the women’s insurance market estimated at US$1.45 trillion and projected to reach US$1.7 trillion by 2030, nearly half in emerging markets. Despite this, a persistent gender protection gap remains across health, life, agriculture, and climate risks, representing both an inclusion challenge and a major commercial growth opportunity.

The core constraint is not access alone, but insurance performance for women clients, where products often misalign with women’s risks, irregular incomes, and trust barriers, resulting in low uptake, weak retention, and limited value realization. Evidence shows women are high-value clients, demonstrating stronger loyalty and more stable portfolio performance when products reflect their lived realities.

Convened by Women's World Banking (WWB), this session presents practical evidence from its direct implementations and ecosystems.

Hosted by Rural Inclusion Labs Ltd

Speaker:

John Caroll
Consultant and Latin America Specialist, Microinsurance Centre at Milliman, USA

Sinja Buri
Lead, Climate Risk Finance Solutions, MCII, UNU-EHS, Germany

Maryann Knowles
COO, Lumkani, South Africa

Facilitator:

Jack Farren
CEO, Rural Inclusion Labs, United Kingdom

Reaching underserved communities with meaningful insurance education requires more than awareness campaigns. It demands innovation in content design, channel selection, strategy, and the infrastructure that sustains learning over time. Yet, the sector lacks robust, comparative evidence on what actually works, particularly for complex products such as parametric climate risk insurance, and for populations with low literacy or limited connectivity.

This session brings together practitioners, researchers and implementers to share evidence and practical experience on the frontiers of inclusive insurance literacy. Drawing on case studies spanning Sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific Islands, panellists will explore how different content formats can build awareness, comprehension, and trust. 

Rural Inclusion Labs will open with a global perspective on localised consumer education, highlighting the value of open-sourced foundational content and curriculum, infrastructure that enables partners to adapt and deploy learning at scale. 

UNU-EHS will present findings from a first-of-its-kind randomised study in the Solomon Islands, comparing five content formats for building parametric insurance awareness among savings group members. 

Lumkani will share their experience redesigning Hollard's financial literacy programme for South Africa's low-income sector, with data showing a 25% uplift in policy uptake following consumer education events.

The Microinsurance Centre at Milliman (MIC@M) will present their co-design approach to developing integrated marketing and customer education strategies for climate insurance products, including how iterative prototyping and client-centred design can build awareness, comprehension, and purchase intent across the customer journey.

The session closes with an interactive audience exercise, leaving participants with concrete, adaptable approaches they can apply to their own programmes.

Hosted by Zep-Re (PTA Reinsurance)

Speaker:

George Odera
Head of Inclusive Solutions, Zep-Re (PTA Reinsurance), Kenya

Elias Omondi
Principal, Sustainable Insurance, FSD Africa, Kenya

Stella Kimani
Chief Operating Officer, ACRE Africa, Kenya

Facilitator:

Nicholas Murimi
Group Chief Product Development Officer, Bank of Kigali Group, Rwanda

Inclusive insurance is central to closing Africa’s protection gap, but many initiatives still struggle to achieve scale. The challenge is often not a lack of product innovation, but the absence of scalable business models that align customer value, distribution economics, risk capacity, regulation, technology, data and financing.

This session will examine how ecosystem-led business models can move inclusive insurance from outreach to sustainable scale. It will position BimaLab as a strategic innovation pipeline for Africa’s inclusive insurance market, supporting post-MVP insurtechs and innovators across sectors.

Through its continental accelerator model, BimaLab helps identify, test and prepare inclusive insurance solutions for market adoption. The programme combines competitive selection, acceleration support, regulatory engagement, pilot readiness and structured market linkages. With over 130 insurtechs accelerated across 28 African markets, more than USD 25 million in follow-on capital mobilised, and over 6 million low-income customers reached, BimaLab provides a practical pipeline for market-ready innovation.

The session will then explore how ZEP-RE, as a Pan-African reinsurer with both a commercial and development mandate, can provide the capacity-to-scale layer needed to move promising innovations into sustainable business models. This includes risk capacity, portfolio structuring, pricing support, technical assistance, regional risk pooling, partnership design and market development.

Using practical examples across ecosystem resilience, embedded digital insurance, agriculture and climate risk, and insurance-backed lending, the session will show how inclusive insurance can be structured for relevance, viability and scale.

The core message is that Africa needs a stronger innovation-to-capacity pathway: one where platforms such as BimaLab prepare scalable solutions, and reinsurers such as ZEP-RE help structure, de-risk and scale them sustainably.

Hosted by SCBF

Speaker:

Deepak Barsay
CEO, TruNord Technologies Ltd., United Arab Emirates

Siani Malama
Director of Insurance Business Development, VisionFund International, South Africa

Sohail Ali
CEO, Kaf Insurance, Egypt

Facilitator:

Michael McCord
Managing Director, Microinsurance Centre at Milliman, United States

Despite decades of progress, millions are unprotected by microinsurance – low-income households, farmers and microentrepreneurs. Insurers struggle to tailor products and sell standalone microinsurance, while MFIs, though client-centric, face months-long processes to build insurance partnerships that are often cumbersome for the institution and clients. The solution is the adoption of low-barrier, digital platforms. From slow, paper-based processes to AI-driven underwriting, open APIs and no-code, modular platforms; the design, delivery and servicing of microinsurance is transforming, making it faster, more affordable and scalable. Digital platforms allow insurers to embed microinsurance into ecosystems through partnerships with MFIs and aggregators. This enables real-time product customisation, seamless onboarding and efficient claims management.

Hosted by OneAcre Fund

Speaker:

Jaime de Piniés
CEO, Blue Marble, Switzerland

Johannes Borchert
Head of Risk & Resilience, One Acre Fund, Kenya

Linet Odera
Chief Public Sector Inclusive Solutions, ZEP-RE (PTA Reinsurance Company), South Africa

Facilitator:

Sharon Adhiambo Onyango
Inclusive Insurance Specialist, International Finance Corporation, Kenya

Smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa have long been considered uninsurable - too small, too dispersed, too costly to serve. This session challenges that assumption with operational evidence from the field, arguing that the protection gap is not a market inevitability but a structural failure that purpose-built innovation can overcome.

The barriers run through the entire value chain. At the primary level, basis risk is high, trust is low, and actuarial tools are frequently inadequate for smallholder realities. Further back, reinsurance markets have withheld the capital that would allow primary insurers to take on this risk at all. Closing the gap requires simultaneous innovation at both levels.

Emerging models across Africa are beginning to demonstrate that this is feasible. Captive reinsurance structures are aggregating millions of individual smallholder risks into bankable portfolios. Blended finance mechanisms (combining DFI partnerships, first-loss capital, and technical assistance) are unlocking commercial reinsurance capacity. And automatic in-season payouts are proving that product design can be accurate enough to protect loan repayment and household resilience at scale.

Drawing on operational experience across Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi, including over 1.2 million farmers covered and $16.5 million in sum insured, this session examines what it actually takes to make smallholder reinsurance work: the actuarial challenges, the capital structures, the actor roles, and the conditions for replication.

The central finding is clear: climate insurance is no longer an add-on for smallholder finance. It is a prerequisite for food security. When climate risk is properly managed, lenders lend more, farmers invest more, and the entire agricultural value chain becomes more resilient.

Hosted by AB Entheos Ltd

Speaker:

Carlos Arango
Snr. Manager for Economic Resilience, RARE, Philippines

Neliswa Hare
Head of Projects and Partnerships, Humanity Insured, United Kingdom

Kay Tuschen
Head of Climate Resilience Solutions, Global Parametrics, United Kingdom

María Belén Gómez 
Board of Directors member, RUS Seguros, Argentina

Facilitator:

Barbara Chesire
Managing Director, AB Entheos Limited, Kenya

Nature and biodiversity loss is increasingly recognised as a critical risk frontier, with the World Economic Forum (WEF) estimating that over 50% of global GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its ecosystem services. Financial instruments to protect these assets and the communities whose livelihoods depend on them remain fragmented and far from scale, exposing key sectors like agriculture, food, and forestry to severe risks.

Climate change is accelerating the pace and severity of prolonged droughts, displacing wildlife into human settlements, intensifying storms, devastating coastal fishing communities, and biodiversity collapse, weakening the natural buffers that once protected vulnerable communities. This session aims to bring together solution designers, practitioners, funders, and development partners who are actively closing the gap. They will present live pilots, proven models, and practical tools to accelerate the journey from proof of concept to scale.

Objectives:

• Present insurance as a tool for protecting communities exposed to nature and biodiversity risks.
• Showcase human–wildlife conflict insurance in Africa and Parametric fishers’ insurance in the Philippines as innovative, replicable models.
• Present the roles of governments, multilateral organisations, development partners, and the private sector in co-creating and financing nature-inclusive insurance solutions.
• Identify what it will take in terms of data, regulation, capital, and partnerships to bring these solutions to scale across Africa and beyond.

Hosted by World Bank Group

Speaker:

Sharon Onyango
Operations Officer, WBG, Ethiopia

Hassan Habimana
Bridge Lending Window Specialist, Development Bank of Rwanda, Rwanda

Rhoda Rubaiza
Project lead- Business Development Drive, Zep Re, Kenya

Facilitator:

Qhelile Ndlovu
Senior Financial Sector Specialist, WBG, USA

As climate and disaster risks rise, strengthening financial resilience for MSMEs, smallholder farmers, and vulnerable communities requires innovative public–private approaches that integrate insurance, credit, savings, and risk reduction. This session will explore how collaboration between governments, development partners, (re)insurers and lenders can scale effective risk management solutions.

We will highlight Rwanda’s Bridge Lending Window, where meso-level insurance links credit guarantees and emergency liquidity to provide rapid post-shock financing for MSMEs. By acting as a backstop for lenders, insurance enables continued credit flows, reduces defaults, and accelerates recovery, showing insurance as a catalyst for economic recovery and growth, not just protection.

Complementing this, global research will demonstrate how parametric and microinsurance can expand agricultural credit to market-oriented smallholders, while mitigating systemic disaster risks. This part will showcase WBG initiatives such as AgriConnect and Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP), which leverage PPPs to scale climate and agriculture insurance for farmers.

The panel aims to address these key questions with evidence and examples:

• What is facilitating integrated financial solutions to strengthen MSME resilience in disaster-prone contexts, and how can these solutions be expanded (i.e., BLW Rwanda)? 
• What PPP models are most effective to scale agricultural insurance, and what key lessons can we learn (AgriConnect, AAAP, DRIVE). 
• What is the state of evidence on the role of product design and customisation to improve uptake, trust, and impact (i.e., Global Data, Takaful under DRIVE). 
• What policy and market interventions are needed to strengthen partnerships between insurers, lenders, governments, and development partners to accelerate recovery of farmers and businesses (i.e., global research with LatAm, Africa, and Asia highlights). 

Hosted by MicroInsurance Centre at Milliman

Speaker:

Callie Smith
Disaster Risk Finance Associate, Global Parametrics Risk Solutions, United Kingdom

Nilofer Sohail
General Manager, EFU Life Assurance Ltd, Pakistan

Gavin Moyo
CEO, FINCA Malawi, Malawi

Facilitator:

TBC

The MicroInsurance Centre at Milliman (MIC@M) and CelsiusPro Group (CPG) have collaborated on multiple donor projects to support MFIs in Malawi and Pakistan to strengthen resilience on multiple layers:

1. Micro Layer: Increase the resilience of MFI clients through microinsurance and recovery lending.
2. Meso Layer: Strengthen the overall credit portfolio of the MFIs by enhancing their resilience through business continuity strategies and portfolio insurance. 

Session objectives: 

• Provide a technical overview of how the risk layering approach fits together, and what each layer can do to enhance institutional and end client resilience. 
• Unpack the hurdles of why it’s not so straightforward to layer a complementary scheme at both levels:
• Understand directly from practitioners the need and motivation: 
• Share an overview of pilot experiences:
  • How customer-centric research and product development in Malawi led to a suitable product for FINCA at both layers.
  • How the meso-layer coverage for MFI loan portfolios manifests the resilience of end clients through continued lending on top of the micro layer coverage, even after shocks.    
  • How a recent analysis showed that SAFCO needs additional liquidity in order to enable other interventions at the micro level.
• Share pilot results and lessons learned

Hosted by Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute

Speaker:

Damien Revault
Senior Project Leader, Swiss TPH, Comores

Ali Idrisa Abeid
Director Membership and Compliance, Zanzibar Health Service Fund, Zanzibar (Tanzania)

Jean-Bernard Gbangou
Project Leader PADS, Swiss TPH, Chad

Facilitator:

Daniella Majakari Bernard
Project Manager in Health Financing, Swiss TPH, Switzerland

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to some of the most ambitious social health protection reforms, and some of the most persistent implementation gaps. This session draws on Swiss TPH’s direct TA across 4 African countries: Zanzibar (Tanzania), Comoros, Cameroon and Chad, to examine why some schemes progress rapidly while others face structural delays, and what practitioners and policymakers can do about it. 

Each country offers an instructive story. Zanzibar invested in demand-side preparation, laying strong foundations while navigating the challenges of short-term TA mandates. Chad enacted a UHC legislation, followed by the creation of a national insurer, demonstrating that legal and institutional frameworks are critical first steps, but sustained implementation is equally essential. Cameroon mobilised strong political will to harmonise multiple vertical programmes into a national UHC scheme, offering lessons on managing complexity and digitalisation at pace. Comoros, through a holistic project model with continuous on-site support, moved from scheme design to 1st insurance launch in under 3 years. 

A short introduction of each country will be followed by three thematic discussions: 

1. Know before you build – Enabling environments and demand-driven design 
2. Government in the driver’s seat – Navigating political will, stakeholder coordination, and ownership across fragile and transitioning contexts 
3. Building capacity, not dependency – Towards sustainability through knowledge sharing and local institution strengthening

Hosted by UNDP

Speaker:

Oreoluwa Finnih
Special Adviser on SDGs, Lagos State Government, Nigeria

Omar Cissé Sow
Technical and Commercial Director, CNAAS, Senegal

Mavis Mainu
Senior Advisor, Global Shield Secretariat, Germany

Facilitator:

David Mueller
Regional Lead, UNDP, South Africa

Climate and disaster risks are no longer episodic shocks, but systemic pressures that disproportionately affect vulnerable communities, small businesses and growing urban populations. Floods, storms, and droughts are increasing in frequency, placing sustained strain on public budgets and service delivery. While parametric and index‑based insurance have expanded over the past decade, moving beyond pilots to scalable, country‑led systems remains a challenge.

This session explores how integrated macro‑, meso‑, and micro‑level approaches can shift climate risk insurance from standalone products to embedded national resilience frameworks. Drawing on UNDP experience in Nigeria and Ghana, with emerging work in Senegal and across West Africa, the discussion will show how insurance can be linked to public financial management, disaster response, and social protection to deliver timely support.

In Nigeria, a sub‑sovereign parametric flood insurance programme in Lagos shows how risk transfer can be embedded in public systems, enabling rapid liquidity and response for up to 4 million people. Ghana’s sub‑national flood insurance initiative similarly demonstrates proactive disaster financing, while experiences in Senegal highlight inclusive insurance models for agricultural, community and flood‑risk resilience.

The session will focus on three areas: (i) scaling parametric and index insurance through better product design, data and trust; (ii) effective public–private partnerships, including premium financing and risk layering; and (iii) integrating insurance within broader risk management and anticipatory action frameworks. Arguing for a systems approach, where insurance complements risk reduction, early warning systems, and social protection, it will offer practical lessons for policymakers, insurers, and development partners seeking to scale climate and disaster risk coverage.

Hosted by Microinsurance Master

Speaker:

Ovia Tuhairwe
CEO, Radiant Yacu, Rwanda

Solène Podevin Favre
Global Director, Inclusive Insurance, VisionFund International, France

Francois Petousis
CEO, Director, Lumkani, South Africa

Facilitator:

Gideon Ataraire
Partner, Microinsurance Master, Ghana

“We thought we knew our customers. We didn’t.”

Important strategic shifts in microinsurance have come after leaders left the boardroom, went to the field, and challenged long-held assumptions about what customers actually need. Ultimately, serving low-income communities well is what matters most in microinsurance, and to serve them well, you need to understand them well. As a leader, you may not have all the answers, but if you know how to learn from your customers, they become your guide.

This plenary session brings together senior microinsurance leaders for a candid, evidence-driven discussion on customer needs, demand analysis, and the leader's role in building organisations driven by customer insight.

Hosted by 3IF Ventures

Speaker:

Elizabeth Njambi Njeri
Manager, FSD Africa, Kenya

Mwenda Mugendi
CEO and Founder, Agrails, Kenya

Ted Pantone
CEO and Founder, Turaco, Kenya

Facilitator:

Mario Wilhelm
General Partner, 3IF Ventures, Switzerland / Kenya

Over 90% of Africans lack access to insurance, a gap that cannot be closed by traditional industry alone. This session presents a replicable blueprint for building an inclusive insurance innovation ecosystem, drawing on five years of evidence from the BimaLab Africa Accelerator Programme (150+ innovators) and the launch of 3IF Ventures, a dedicated early-stage investment fund bridging the "valley of death" between acceleration and commercial viability.

The session tackles the core 3A Challenge: Awareness, Affordability, and Accessibility; and explores what it takes to support startups along the full innovation continuum: from incubation and acceleration through to investment and scale.

Key questions explored:

1. What does the innovation continuum look like in practice in African insurance markets?
2. What prevents promising startups from surviving the valley of death?
3. What does investment readiness look like in the African context?
4. How can this model be replicated across other markets?

Hosted by Rio Uruguay Cooperative de Seguros Limitada

Speaker:

María Belén Gómez
Board member, Rio Uruguay Seguros, Argentina

Ahila Devi Subramanian
CEO People’s Mutuals, Dhan Foundation, India

Mehboob Ali Shah
Head Digital - Inclusive Insurance, EFU Life, Pakistan

Facilitator:

Lisa Morgan
Technical Specialist, ILO's Impact Insurance Facility, Switzerland

Value-Added Health Services (VAHS) are transforming health access for low-income populations by bundling practical, non-financial support with insurance products. Services like telemedicine, pharmacy discounts, care navigation, preventive screenings, health education, and medicine delivery make insurance more tangible and valuable — especially for those unfamiliar with it or facing high out-of-pocket costs. These tools reduce financial barriers, bridge gaps in healthcare availability, and promote earlier interventions to avert costly complications.

Low-income households often delay care due to expense, distance, or distrust, leading to worse outcomes. VAHS address this head-on: digital options like teleconsultations offer convenience without travel; discounts cut medicine costs; screenings detect risks early; and reminders encourage adherence.

Insurers benefit, too: VAHS differentiate products, increase engagement (60% repeat users), control costs via prevention/gatekeeping, and strengthen partner ties. There are many examples of success stories in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which will be discussed during the session.

In this session, we will begin with key insights on access to health services from the 2026 Landscape Study. Practitioners from Asia, Africa, and Latin America will then share real-world experiences on how value-added health services can enhance client impact. They will walk through the practical steps they took to design, launch, and scale these services, showing how they can improve access to care, strengthen client trust, and increase renewal rates among low-income populations.

Panellists will also discuss the vital role of innovation, supportive regulatory frameworks, cross-sector collaboration, and equitable technology access in driving VAHS success!

Hosted by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

Speaker:

Manuel Richter
CEO – Co-Founder, Luxelare, Mexico

Simi Jentry
Project Manager and Researcher, Milliman, Nigeria

Sarathy Srinivas
Head of Strategy, WRMS Global, India

Facilitator:

Tara James
Senior Climate Risk/Agricultural Insurance Specialist, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Barbados/Italy 

Smallholder farmers face intensifying climate risks, yet fewer than 1 in 5 has agricultural insurance coverage; in Sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 97% remain uninsured. This is not simply a product problem. Despite significant investment and innovation, many solutions still struggle to deliver value and scale, because products alone cannot overcome fragmented delivery systems, basis risk, or affordability constraints without sustained public support.

The premise is simple: agricultural insurance requires more than just better products. It explores a layered approach that combines interdependent layers: risk layers (across individual, community, and sovereign levels); institutional layers (using PPPs to allocate roles and costs); and delivery layers (using technology to improve data, efficiency, and responsiveness).

Drawing on two new research papers produced by the Microinsurance Network's Best Practice Group on Smallholder Farmers — one examining PPP models across 7 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and one on the role of technology in agricultural insurance — the session grounds this framework in evidence and practice.

Through global case studies, including Rwanda, speakers will show how layering improves outcomes: redesigning livestock insurance to support farmer recovery post-disaster, not just protect lenders; structuring programmes that integrate multiple risk layers across farmer, community, and government levels; and applying digital tools to improve targeting, delivery, and claims.

The session goes beyond showcasing successes to critically examine trade-offs and persistent gaps. An interactive debate will explore the evolving roles of PPPs and technology in scaling agricultural insurance, inviting participants to reflect on whether technology can substitute for, or must complement, institutional partnerships. Participants will leave with actionable insights on designing farmer-centric solutions that move beyond pilots and deliver real impact.

Hosted by FSD Africa

Speaker:

Agnes Kanjala
Founder and CEO, Nuru Solutions, Malawi

Sheila Byenkya 
Head, Inclusive Insurance, ZEP RE, Kenya

Antonella Abategiovanni 
Risk & Resilience Senior Associate, One Acre Fund, Kenya

Facilitator:

Arjmand Banu Khan 
Head, Gender Centre of Expertise, FSD Africa, Kenya

Insurance uptake among women remains low across African markets, not only due to access barriers, but because many products do not reflect how women earn, manage risk, and build trust.  This results in low uptake, weak retention, and missed commercial opportunities.

This session focuses on what is not working in practice, and what insurers and partners can do differently to improve product performance. 

The session will combine real product evidence (BimaLab, insurtechs serving women in agriculture, climate, and health), reinsurance, and regulatory perspectives on gender-intentional underwriting, and audience-driven problem-solving. 

Speaker:

Representative of the Rwandan National Organizing Committee

Matthew Genazzini
Executive Director, MiN, Luxembourg

Facilitator:

Dirk Reinhard
Vice Chair, Munich Re Foundation, Germany

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