The global insurance protection gap is one of the most pressing issues facing our society. It leads to a severe lack of societal resilience in many developing and emerging countries, where insurance today hardly plays any role when it comes to mitigating the impacts of natural disasters or pandemics, to name just two of the major societal risks. More often than not, all economic losses remain basically uninsured. This situation, however, is not limited to emerging markets. A recent example is the devastating earthquake that hit central Italy on 24 August 2016 where about 90% of total losses were uninsured. Therefore, (re)insurers need to further strengthen their contribution to society’s resilience to disasters as well as to creeping developments such as ageing or longevity. More broadly, insurance has a fundamental role to play in facilitating and protecting the economic emancipation of people from poverty across the globe by offering a safety net against external shocks such as sickness and accident.
With this in mind, this publication focuses on how digital technology can be a lever for the insurance industry to narrow protection gaps in both mature but also especially in developing insurance markets by enhancing the awareness, affordability and attractiveness of insurance products and solutions. This report also offers an in-depth review of key concepts of insurance economics, practitioner approaches and specific case studies. Its findings were complemented and validated through 23 executive and expert interviews.
The use of technology is one of the most relevant and topical dimensions of the global protection gap debate. With this report, we want to highlight, gauge and quantify win-win situations for insurers, policyholders and societies at large. On this basis, we hope to sensitise the global (re)insurance community, governments, lawmakers, regulators, standard-setters, development banks, supranational organisations and consumers to the enormous leverage technology can deploy to make societies more resilient through risk mitigation, and protection products and solutions.
This publication would not have been possible without substantial inputs from The Geneva Association Members’ companies, other insurers and reinsurers, technology and insurtech firms, consultants, the investment community and academia. We are very grateful for their support and contributions.
