Eighteen (18) officers and staff of eleven (11) rural banks participated in the 2-day Microinsurance Basic Training held on May 4 and 5 at the Golden Prince Hotel in Cebu City. Stated goals of the participants included (1) increased understanding of the concept and principles of microinsurance; (2) identification of criteria for partnership selection, and (3) awareness of requirements and procedures for regulatory compliance in offering Microinsurance.
With this in mind, the Microinsurance Training Team employed a mix of lectures, workshops and simulation activities to ensure that the participants not only learn the basic concepts of microinsurance, but also aim to pursue responsible microinsurance marketing and servicing as licensed microinsurance agents/brokers. The Microinsurance Agent Licensing Kit containing step-by-step guides and templates was provided to all participants. This kit is to assist the participants’ respective banks through microinsurance service enhancements and regulatory compliance procedures prescribed by the Insurance Commission (IC) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
The event came at the heels of the Insurance Commission’s authorization of RBAP-RBRDFI as the Microinsurance Basic Training Provider for the rural banking sector. This milestone was a result of the USAID-supported RBAP-MABS program’s efforts to continuously involve RBAP partner-insurers and the Philippine Life Insurance Association (PLIA) in dialogues with the IC and the BSP. Through these dialogues, clear and streamlined procedures for banks to qualify for microinsurance agent/broker licensing were developed.
The two-day MI Basic Training Course by RBAP fulfills two of the three days of training prescribed for microinsurance agent banks. Not only can RBAP extensively discuss microinsurance issues and requirements salient to rural banks, commercial insurers can also allocate more resources to ensuring the effectiveness of their 1-day Product Mastery Training for their partners.
In compliance with the IC requirements on MI Agent Training, participants were required to complete a 50-item qualifying exam supervised by RBAP. All eighteen (18) participants successfully completed the exam, which now qualifies them as microinsurance soliciting officers should the Bank’s Board of Directors (BOD) assign them. The participants were encouraged to facilitate the submission of a Request for No Objection Notice to the BSP upon their return to their bank in order to kick off their MI service enhancement and regulatory compliance.