SDG 5: Gender Equality
Inclusive insurance policymaking is not gender-neutral. Women and men have the potential to be differentially impacted by financial sector policies and by regulatory and supervisory approaches to insurance.
Women face a number of legal, economic, and socio-cultural barriers that could disproportionately impede their access to insurance. Such barriers may include the predominance of women in the informal sector, lower levels of financial literacy, and the inability to enter legal contracts without male signatories.
In such cases, women are comparatively more vulnerable to a multitude of risks that could plunge them into poverty. Despite these barriers, there is a significant market opportunity in providing inclusive insurance for women. Some estimates suggest that women represent a market opportunity for insurance premiums of between US$1.45 and US$1.7 trillion by 2030 (IFC & AXA, 2015).
Integrating a gender perspective in regulation and supervision is key to increasing financial inclusion
By removing regulatory barriers that hinder women's access to insurance, stimulating innovation and promoting gender diversity in the insurance industry and by establishing gender-sensitive financial literacy strategies supervisors can play an important role in enhancing women's access to insurance.
Adopting data-driven policymaking is key. Distinguishing customers on the basis of gender is one way to delineate the profile of insurance clients; doing so, therefore, opens up the possibility of employing targeted policy tools that are tailored to gender-specific barriers or impacts.
Partnership with SDC
♦ From 2021-2022, the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) supported A2ii in implementing the project ‘Empowering supervisors to improve women’s access to insurance'. The project objective is to give insurance supervisors the knowledge and the tools they need to create frameworks conditions that facilitate better access to high quality insurance for women.
The four main project activities included: 1. Research on women’s access to insurance, the effect of Covid-19 and the role of insurance supervisors, 2. Mainstreaming gender in A2ii’s core activities, 3. Supervisory training on women’s access to insurance and empowerment of women insurance supervisors as leaders, and 4. Advocacy among supervisors.
The project resulted in the:
♦ Self-paced training modules for supervisors on gender lens and practices in insurance
♦ Paper The Role of Insurance Supervisors in Boosting Women's Access to Insurance (2021)
♦ FeMa Meter
A2ii developed a tool for insurance companies, regulators, supervisors and policymakers to collect and review sex-disaggregated data - the FeMa Meter Tool. The tool is Microsoft Excel based and aims to help insurance companies, regulators and supervisors to disaggregate 13 key insurance metrics by sex (female and male). The tool provides immediate and simple output calculations that compare differences across various indicators between men and women. During 2023, A2ii piloted and tested the toolkit, and it was launched on International Women's Day 2024. Full information is on the FeMa-Meter page.
iii-lab
♦ Argentina's participation in the second iii-lab resulted in the project "Women and Insurance" - learn more on the iii-lab 2 page.
A2ii work on SDG 5
♦ A2ii and SSN publish joint report on the Gender Equity Survey of the Argentinian Insurance Market
♦ A2ii-IAIS Supervisory Dialogue on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
♦ The A2ii Supervisory KPIs Lexicon is an interactive, searchable directory of KPIs across four pillars: Prudential, Market Conduct, Market Development and SDGs. The SDGs KPIs list draws on insurance supervisory experience and development reports as well as CSR reports of leading global insurers.
The SDG KPIs are divided into 3 categories:
Impact story: KPIs illustrating the impact or importance of insurance towards achieving the SDG. Supervisors can use these to support advocacy and dialogue with policymakers.
Product: KPIs measuring to what extent insurers are contributing to SDGs via relevant insurance products and services. Supervisors can use these to measure the state of play and set aspirations.
Corporate citizen: KPIs measuring to what extent insurers are contributing to SDGs beyond product provision and underwriting i.e. as an investor, employer, economic agent, risk expert, convener and a business overall.
The aim of this paper was to inspire momentum and increase awareness among insurance supervisors of the transformative potential of gender approaches. It explains how supervisors have started to consider gender dimensions in their work, in particular by exploring differences between women and men’s access to insurance.
Moreover, it emphasises the relevance of women’s access to insurance in the context of financial inclusion policymaking. Continue reading...
This collection of notes and case studies covers a number of themes related to the demand and supply of insurance products for women, with a focus on the inclusive insurance market—which seeks to include clients who either don’t have insurance or lack the right insurance coverage.
This publication was developed as part of a collaborative effort between GIZ’s Sector Initiatives Social Protection and Global Initiative for Access to Insurance on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), International Finance Corporation, Women’s World Banking, the Access to Insurance Initiative, and the Self-Employed Women’s Association. Continue reading...
This consultation call took place on Thursday, 23 May 2019, where experts from the Toronto Centre and Women’s World Banking explored key issues regarding barriers to access, mainstreaming gender and targeting women and the insurance supervisor's role in bridging the gender gap.
The presentations and the report from this call in English, Spanish and French can be found here.
♦ Roundtable on Insurance for Women: Specific Needs and Inclusion
The Roundtable on “Insurance for Women: Specific Needs and Inclusion”, jointly organised by the Superintendencia de Seguros de la Nación (SSN) and the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii), with the support of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), was held on 12 June 2019 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Continue reading...
♦ Supervisory KPIs Lexicon SDG 5 Indicators
♦ A2ii-IAIS Public Dialogue Women's Access to Insurance
♦ The Role of Insurance Supervisors in Boosting Women's Access to Insurance
♦ Mainstreaming gender in inclusive insurance - the time is now - blog
