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Protecta Compañía de Seguros

About the Project
Project Name: 
Seguro Mi Familia Municipal
Type of Facility Project: 
Innovation Grant
País de operaciones: 
Peru
Region: 
Latin America and the Caribbean
Project Thematic Focus: 
Insitutional models and business processes
Product: 
Life
Type of Risk Carrier: 
regulated insurance company
Type of Distribution Channel: 
Government networks
Project Description: 

The project Seguro Mi Familia Municipal seeks to implement a model that will be able to respond to one of the most sensitive risks facing the low-income population. The insurer will provide access to low priced life insurance, which will temporarily substitute lost income in the event of death of the primary breadwinner and cover the most urgent related expenses.

The project is based on an analysis of the daily lives of the target population. The product will be distributed by municipalities that are interested in improving the quality of life of low-income people and that already have developed a trust relationship with these communities.

The project also includes providing managerial and operational support, both with processes and technological issues, to the municipalities who will work as the agents. This will allow them to offer insurance products that shall become financially sustainable. This support will be of particular importance when these institutions are not familiar with microinsurance and its associated processes. Finally, the project hopes to develop, through the municipalities, a culture of insurance among low-income people.

Click here to view the Product Description of Protecta.

Beneficiaries: 

The beneficiaries are low-income people who own their homes, either totally or partially. As homeowners they are tax payers to the local municipality. The target population is made up of self-employed families, most of them microentrepreneurs, who are excluded from a number of services: health and home insurance, access to pension schemes and access to insurance in general. Clients have been excluded from these services in part because they do not have legal documentation that legitimates their property ownership and they work in the informal economy with irregular incomes. The objective in implementing this insurance model is to satisfy the need for social protection for approximately 280,000 persons.

Lessons from the Project
Learning Agenda: 

At the completion of the project Seguro Mi Familia Municipal, we will be able to collect information relevant to the following questions:

  • Can local governments be an active agent in the distribution of insurance?
  • Will the Protecta card be valued as a benefit by the population so as to enable a sustainable insurance product and maintain take up rates?
  • Can "insurance with a social mission" be a mechanism for spreading an insurance culture?
  • Will the clients of the sector gain a better understanding and knowledge of this type of insurance?
  • Is it viable for insurance companies to offer "insurance with a social mission" over the long term to the least advantaged sectors?
  • How do the populations of low-income districts perceive microinsurance? What is their perception of insurance companies?
  • Will the local government be able to offer good customer service, making use of the processes and tools of the insurance company designed for this end, and therefore satisfy the expectations of the population?
Emerging Lessons: 
  • The non-financial component of the product, such as the Protecta Card, which offers additional and tangible benefits, allows for better access to the target population and is an attraction for the municipalities.
  • The ability of the distribution channel (in this case the municipality) to manage insurance projects depends on the level of operational management in each municipality, and determines the need for additional resources at the start of operations.
  • Work with political entities such as municipalities requires special considerations in the project design, especially on commercial issues, owing to the municipalities’ particular patterns of recruitment and their administrative management.
  • The insurance company can offer additional value to its members by generating and managing client information.
  • It is necessary to measure the impact of the education and the culture of insurance programme during the pilot so that the implementation, when the project is scaled up, can be carried out with the best possible strategy.
  • Direct education campaigns have an impact on the level of knowledge on the subject in the target population, but the scale achieved is extremely limited.
  • The technology used by the insurer to provide support for microinsurance products, such as Mi Familia Municipal, needed adjustments, as did the municipality systems.
  • The computer system used by a distribution channel must be able to be incorporated intothe general system of the insurance company.
  • An integrated management model allows the organization to have greater control over the implementation of the project, and to proactively respond to the needs of the project.

About the Organization
Tipo de vínculo con el Fondo: 
Innovation grantee
Country of Head Office: 
Peru
Region : 
Latin America and the Caribbean
Type of institution : 
Insurance industry
Participation in Microinsurance: 
Risk carrier
Organizational Overview: 

Protecta Compañía de Seguros S.A. (Protecta Insurance Company), one of the first insurance companies in Peru to enter the insurance market with the purpose of serving small scale entrepreneurs and low-income families, started its activities in January 2008. The ACP Group is Protecta's main shareholder and is also the main shareholder of Mibanco, Peru's leading specialized microfinance bank. Protecta's main product lines include: credit life insurance and life insurance for the spouses of microentrepreneurs.

Protecta attracted the interest of the International Financial Corporation (IFC), affiliated with the World Bank, and in December 2008 the IFC became a shareholder of Protecta with 16.5% of the shares.

With more than half a million lives covered already, the company aims to transform the insurance market in Peru and become a microinsurance leader in Latin America, just as MiBanco has achieved in the microfinance sector.

More about the Organization
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