Index Insurance for Weather Risk in Low-Income Countries

This primer focuses on innovation in weather insurance designed to fit the special circumstances of lower-income countries where rural and agricultural financial markets are largely underdeveloped. It contains sections on the following key topics:

• An introduction to index insurance
• Effects of weather risk in lower-income countries
• Importance of weather insurance for lower-income countries
• Traditional weather insurance for mitigating agricultural weather risks
• A new approach – index-insurance for weather risk
• Role of governments and donors
• Preconditions for and restrictions to index insurance
• Feasibility study for index insurance
• Pilot-testing of index insurance
• Applications of index insurance