5th Financial Expert Day of the Strategic Partners AFC and ADG

Internal Financial Expert Days are organized by AFC/ADG in Montabaur annually in order to discuss new topics in the field of financial sector development and to exchange experiences from ongoing projects in a friendly and familiar setting. On January 06 and 07, 2013, the strategic partners of AFC and ADG were pleased to welcome our associated international experts of the financial sector development field to ADG’s premises of Montabaur Castle. The 5^thof the successful annual event was headed under the topic “The Role of Insurance in Microfinance” and created a platform to discuss recent trends and innovations amongst colleagues and partners.

An introductory presentation given by AFC’s Managing Director Mr Buschmeier was the starting point for our discussions. Mr Buschmeier focused on donor’s involvement in this area and made it clear that microinsurance is nowadays internationally recognized as one of the three pillars of microfinance, next to lending and saving. Following his presentation, the participants were introduced to two specific insurance products. First, Mr Eric Cimon, an internationally recognized consultant for life insurance and saving products in microfinance, gave an overview of the importance of insuring against life-cycle events. Second, Mr Gary Asperas from EPOS Health Management – a sister company of AFC within the GOPA Group – presented his experience in designing community-based health insurance schemes in his home country, the Philippines.

The second day of the event was largely devoted to group work, during which we discussed the typical challenges of microinsurance. Each of the two groups was tasked with the design of one specific insurance product (health or life insurance respectively), which explicitly takes into account issues of moral hazard, adverse selection, covariant risks and fraud prevention. Fruitful discussions led to a deepened understanding of the specific problems to be tackled in insurance design and innovative approaches were suggested by the participants. The Financial Expert Day concluded with an open forum discussion on the topic Agricultural Insurance, specifically regarding the advantages and disadvantages of weather-based insurance versus traditional insurance designs.

The two day event has greatly contributed to an increased awareness and knowledge about insurance products. We remain convinced that this field of work will compose an integral part of our financial sector development projects in the future. In particular agricultural insurance is seen as an increasingly interesting field of work for our company, as we can make effective use of synergies between our two company departments: agricultural and financial sector development.

We would like to thank our partners and colleagues for their active contribution to this event and look forward to a fruitful cooperation in the year 2013!

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact Simona Helmsmüller: simona.helmsmueller [at] afci.de.