Pacific Humanitarian Challenge Win

The Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) named BIMA one of the winners of the Pacific Humanitarian Challenge. The award encourages entrepreneurs, businesses, universities and NGOs to identify innovative ideas for how Australia can better assist Pacific communities prepare for and recover from natural disasters.

BIMA’s winning proposal seeks to tackle the issue of financial resilience through the delivery of low-cost insurance. The Pacific Islands are exposed to high levels of risk, but less than 5% of the population is protected by formal life, health, or other personal insurance.

When adverse events occur they impact uninsured families almost immediately, derailing their financial situation and pushing them back into poverty. This has a compounding effect on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), e.g. uninsured employees may struggle to afford healthcare causing extended absences from work and prompting them to ask employers for financial support.

Offering insurance as an employee benefit is an effective way to improve the financial resilience of SMEs, but many of these companies struggle to provide such a service. BIMA’s innovative distribution approach uses mobile technology for registration and payment, making insurance affordable and accessible for previously excluded individuals.

The prize money will be used to roll out BIMA’s proposal, delivering low-cost insurance for up to 160,000 families across the region.