Addressing the Value and Viability Trade-Off in Health Insurance: A Case Study on Uplift Health Mutuals

A demand driven micro health insurance market is one of the biggest opportunities to improve access to healthcare in developing countries. However, the penetration of health insurance at 25% in India1 (considered the fastest growing and the largest microinsurance market) is still dismally low as most of this is achieved through Government subsidized schemes. A range of community-owned health mutuals have been engaged in addressing this challenge and facilitating health provision, but there is limited evidence that scale and sustainability have been achieved.