Michiel Berende from the Microinsurance Network Technology Working Group is coming to the Mifos Summit to brainstorm and explore the creation of a microinsurance open source initiative. We believe that by leveraging our Mifos X platform and global community, he can lead an effort to do for microinsurance what we have done through microcredit. This session will be an interactive brainstorming led by Michiel to determine the requirements, goals and viability of such an initiative.
The Microinsurance Open Source Initiative (MOSI) is a not-for-profit initiative aimed at providing open-source software and consulting services for microinsurance. MOSI explores the possibility to create and promote open-source technologies to support existing and new microinsurance projects.
The initiative has been prepared by international experts active in the Microinsurance Network Technology Working Group. As a result of their work in developing countries the experts have each come to the conclusion that the lack of adequate data sharing, software solutions and IT infrastructure is one of the main barriers preventing microinsurance products from being offered widely in the developing world.
This lack of scale has as a consequence that many microinsurance projects have so far been unable to go beyond the pilot stages and are therefore only reaching very small populations. The lack of adequate insurance data, software and infrastructure are only part of the scalability problem.
Also at issue are the questions of the design of microinsurance products, the efficiency of business processes, distribution channels and the ability of insurance providers to integrate their processes and systems with other organizations involved in providing services to the populations in need of insurance products.
