Inclusive insurance statistics show a rapidly expanding but still incomplete protection system. The Microinsurance Network’s 2024 Landscape counted 344 million people covered in 2023, with gross written premiums of $6.2 billion across 985 products studied in 37 countries. At the same time, the same Landscape estimated that only 11% of the total microinsurance market had been captured.
Contents
- Market size and coverage
- Products, premiums, and scale
- Who is covered
- Distribution and regulation
- Agriculture, health, and protection gaps
- Regional evidence from earlier Landscapes
- Broader inclusion indicators
Market size and coverage
The 2024 Landscape provides the most recent broad view in the supplied sources. Its 37-country study recorded 344 million people with microinsurance coverage during 2023. Nearly 80% of customers were in Asia-Pacific, making that region the main center of observed reach. The study also estimated a market of around 3 billion people in the surveyed countries, with potential premiums of about $41 billion. Only 12% of those people were currently covered.
The coverage figures describe different denominators, so they should not be treated as interchangeable. The Landscape reported that only 11% of the total microinsurance market had been captured, while its estimated population view put current coverage at 12% of roughly 3 billion potential customers. Both measures point to substantial remaining room for expansion, but they use different market concepts.
The previous edition, the Microinsurance Network 2023 Landscape, covered 294 insurers, 1,040 products, and 36 countries. It estimated that those products extended coverage to 330 million individuals. That total represented up to 11.5% of the population that could benefit, leaving a reported protection gap of 88.5%.
These annual results are not a single continuous panel with identical coverage in every country. The 2024 Landscape studied 37 countries, while the 2023 Landscape spanned 36. Comparisons therefore describe reported Landscape results for each study rather than a perfectly like-for-like change in one fixed sample.
Products, premiums, and scale
Product-level figures show why headline customer totals do not automatically translate into mature, profitable distribution. In the 2024 Landscape, the median number of customers per microinsurance product exceeded 10,000. Median annual premiums per product were nearly $120,000. Credit life and funeral products served about 29,000 people per product, while mature products could generate close to $500,000 in annual premiums.
Many products needed three to four years to scale. That time-to-scale measure matters for inclusive insurance because products may require sustained investment in distribution, administration, trust, and claims processes before reaching a larger customer base. It also helps explain why median product results and mature-product results differ considerably.
| Measure | Reported result | Source and period |
|---|---|---|
| People covered | 344 million | Microinsurance Network 2024 Landscape, 2023 |
| Gross written premiums | $6.2 billion | Microinsurance Network 2024 Landscape, 2023 |
| Products studied | 985 | Microinsurance Network 2024 Landscape, 2023 |
| Median customers per product | More than 10,000 | Microinsurance Network 2024 Landscape |
| Median annual premiums per product | Nearly $120,000 | Microinsurance Network 2024 Landscape |
| Mature-product annual premiums | Close to $500,000 | Microinsurance Network 2024 Landscape |
The 2023 Landscape reported a slightly different product and provider profile: 1,040 products from 294 insurers across 36 countries, reaching an estimated 330 million people. The 2022 Landscape reported 253 insurance providers across 935 products in 34 countries. These counts illustrate the breadth of the research exercises, but the differing country coverage means they should not be read as a precise year-by-year industry census.
Who is covered
Gender data in the 2024 Landscape suggests that women were close to parity among covered customers. Around 48% of policyholders were women, and around 49% of all people covered by microinsurance were women. Those measures are related but distinct: one counts policyholders, while the other counts covered people.
The wider inclusion picture is more uneven. The Microinsurance Network 2022 Landscape reported that around 68% of the world’s population were emerging consumers living on Int $2 to Int $20 per day. Only 8% of that group were covered by insurance outside public social security systems. This is a population-income measure and should not be directly combined with the 2023 or 2024 microinsurance totals, which use Landscape-specific market definitions.
The 2020 Landscape recorded between 41 million and 102 million people covered in its 27-country study. That represented 3% to 7% of the low- and middle-income population studied. When India and other publicly available data were included, the reported range rose to between 162 million and 253 million people across 28 countries. The ranges reflect the study’s reported scope and should remain ranges rather than being reduced to a single estimate.
The 2020 Landscape also estimated that current premiums represented about 5% of a potential market worth USD 20,500 million. It collected USD 1,060 million in microinsurance premiums. Again, the potential-market estimate and collected-premium figure refer to that study’s 2020 measurement context, not a current global total.
Distribution and regulation
Distribution channels shifted in Africa between 2022 and 2023. The 2024 Landscape reported that cash-payment products fell from 22% of products in 2022 to 17% in 2023. Over the same period, mobile-money microinsurance products rose from 12% to 15%. These percentages describe product-channel shares in the reported African results, not the share of all customers or premiums.
Regulatory infrastructure has also expanded. At least 40 regulators across 53 countries and territories had launched enabling microinsurance regulations, according to the 2024 Landscape. Regulators in 16 markets were developing microinsurance regulations. The figures indicate both established policy frameworks and ongoing regulatory work.
The 2022 Landscape included examples of partnership-based scale. Pioneer in the Philippines reached more than 400,000 customers through more than 20 partners. A voluntary life and health microinsurance product in Guatemala grew at 5% per month. These are individual examples reported in that Landscape, not averages for their countries or for the sector.
Claims activity provides another view of service delivery. EFU Life in Pakistan reported a 25% increase in inclusive-insurance claims in 2021 and paid out over 9,000 claims for inclusive insurance products. The figures concern EFU Life’s reported experience and do not establish a market-wide claims trend.
Agriculture, health, and protection gaps
Agriculture products show how product design and public support can intersect. About 58% of agriculture insurance products were subsidized to some extent in the 2024 Landscape. In the 2022 Landscape, five of eight new agriculture products launched between 2020 and 2021 were index-based. The index-based count is a small, specified group of new products, while the subsidy figure is a broader agriculture-product measure from a later Landscape.
Health and related secondary covers also appeared within products primarily focused on death and disability. In 2022, 83 of 474 products that primarily covered death and disability included secondary health covers. Those secondary health covers reached 53 million people. Life and accident risks were secondary covers in 46 products.
The 2022 Landscape estimated that only 7% of the microinsurance market value had been captured, against an estimated market value of USD 30.9 billion. This market-value estimate differs from the 2024 Landscape’s approximately $41 billion premium opportunity and from the 2023 Landscape’s population-based protection gap. The figures are best read as separate estimates produced under different study years and definitions.
Regional evidence from earlier Landscapes
The 2020 Landscape offers regional detail for the countries included in that study. In eight Asian countries, between 25.4 million and 51.8 million people were covered. That represented 4% to 7% of the low- and middle-income population in those countries, based on results from 59 insurers.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, between 6.2 million and 22.1 million people were covered, with results from 34 insurers. An average product covered 39,600 people, and average premiums per product were USD 760,300. Personal accident products generated average premium income of USD 2.2 million per product in that regional sample.
These regional averages can be useful for understanding product scale, but they are not benchmarks for every insurer. The Asia range, the Latin America and Caribbean range, and the product averages all come from the 2020 study’s defined samples.
Broader inclusion indicators
The GFIA Inclusive Insurance Survey 2025 adds a wider insurance-sector perspective. Its survey received responses from 24 members across 24 countries and contained 11 questions. Fifteen countries gathered data on protection gaps and access to insurance for vulnerable groups. Fifteen had objectives to meet the financial needs of women or vulnerable groups, while 17 offered products or services tailored to those groups. Twelve targeted vulnerable groups through marketing and distribution.
Community programs and financial education were also common in the survey responses. Eighteen countries were proactively engaged in community and financial-sector programs for women and vulnerable groups. Fifteen reported having a financial-education strategy, and 13 offered workplace financial-literacy programs for employees.
The survey recorded several organizational indicators related to gender inclusion. Six associations said they had business objectives focused on women’s or vulnerable groups’ financial security needs; four gave no answer and one was not sure. Fifteen associations said insurers in their jurisdictions promoted good practices, diversity, parity, and equal opportunities. Nineteen countries reported that insurance companies actively promoted gender diversity and equal opportunities.
The country examples show that access and representation are separate dimensions. In France, 4.8 million people were not covered by insurance, equal to 5% of the population; 800,000 drivers were estimated to be uninsured, and 7.6% of the population lived below the poverty threshold. In Italy, 62% of insurance companies continued to provide specific products to promote inclusion.
Leadership measures varied by country and role. Italy reported a 12% increase in women in top management positions since 2022. In France, women represented nearly 36% of the executive population in 2023. In the Netherlands, women in management positions rose from 19% to 32%, while women in the total sub-top increased from 35% to 42%. In Ireland, female representation in senior leadership roles rose from 31% in 2021 to 34%.
In the United Kingdom, women on boards rose from 19% in 2017 to 32% in 2023, and women on executive teams rose from 22% in 2017 to 32% in 2023. These workforce indicators complement, but do not measure, customer coverage. Together with the microinsurance figures, they show that inclusive insurance includes both who receives protection and how the industry designs, distributes, and governs that protection.