Usually people at the BOP cannot afford to pay for insurance or health care. When they fall ill, they end up spending all their own money on surgery, doctors? appointments, tests ? they simply cannot afford health care. Micro-insurance offers an alternative approach to this problem. At affordable premiums, people at the BOP can have access to health care. However, few people in the BOP know how insurance in general even works.

The Micro-Insurance Academy (MIA) based in New Delhi trains and advises micro-insurance units serving the poor. This organization contacted the NextBillion team letting us know that they are launching an Innovation Contest in ideas of how to explain to the people in the BOP what health insurance is and how it works. MIA writes,

As (micro) health insurance is difficult to explain, the MIA invites proposals for innovative, intuitive and original ideas to explain the value proposition of health insurance for poor people and grassroots groups. Proposals could include good stories, anecdotes, games, simulations, picture-stories, scripts for video clips or short movies and the like, to explain insurance to persons with no prior insurance experience.

The prize of the competition is ?1,000, and a jury of seven people will select the winning proposal among the submissions received by the deadline: August 31.

NextBillion encourages our readers to participate in this competition. Micro-insurance is a good way for people in the BOP to have access to health care. And if they do not understand in a clear way how micro-insurance ? or insurance in general ? works, then they will be missing out. This is the perfect opportunity to contribute in capacity-building strategies for the BOP, and at the same time compete for a financial prize ? besides, who doesn?t need some extra money?