The University of California, Davis has partnerned with the Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), with the support of USAID, to establish Quality Index Insurance Certification (QUIIC) in East Africa.
QUIIC has the potential to revolutionize how agricultural index insurance safety.The QUIIC short course was conducted between June 17 and 22 aimed at providing a structured environment for participants to learn about the theoretical and practical foundation for evaluating the quality of index insurance products. By the end of the course, participants were expected to: Explain the theoretical underpinnings of quality standards, Evaluate the quality of sample index insurance projects in a group and individual setting and Apply conceptual skills and understanding of approaches to troubleshoot implementation challenges.
That was the first of three trainings geared towards building capacity of RCMRD and the SERVIR hubs on economics of risk financing. The trainings were led by PI of the project from UC-Davis Prof. Michael Carter and Dr. Elinor Benami who is a Post -Doc working on the QUIIC project.
The course was oriented for practitioners involved in implementing or evaluating index insurance programs. The course was co-instructed by the Director of Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Assets and Market Access, Prof. Michael Carter, and Postdoctoral Scholar Dr. Elinor Benami. Both are part of the Agricultural & Resource Economics Department of the University of California, Davis.
QUIIC has the potential to revolutionize how agricultural index insurance safety. Discussions and training centred around elements of insurance and "perfect Insurance also known as the Actuarially Fair premiums vs Marked up premiums. The teams explored both the economics concepts and evaluated them using R programming. Among other concepts, they explored the value of insurance to a farmer based on their aversion to risk, they determined how insurance payouts, premiums and triggers were calculated and impact on benefit to farmers/users of the insurance- exploring how the certainty equivalent varies in order to understand whether farmers would be better off with insurance than without. They also focused on index insurance- understanding limitations of index insurance, strengths and sources of index insurance failures.
