MIMIS Micro Insurance Management Information System Project Overview

MIMIS : Micro Insurance Management Information System - Project Overview - Valérie Schmitt-Diabaté, Francois-Xavier Hay, Maxime Feroul

Agenda Background & Rational MIMIS : What's that and Why ? Achievable thanks to an innovative cooperation model Inside MIMIS User and data flow Modules and architecture To conclude Risks, next steps

Mimis – What's that ? A Global Management Information System for microinsurance practitioners and their shared business center A Generic application to manage : micro insurance products and their benefit packages members and dependants/beneficiaries various processes like enrolments, collections, entitlement to benefits, claims settlement, management of cash flows, etc. flows of information through multiple channels: SMS, paper, Internet, etc.

MIMIS – Why is it needed ? Local practitioners require practical, ready to use, userfriendly delivery solutions. not another stand alone mechanism but one that can be merged with their existing processes to ensure smallest transaction costs. Shared Business processes centres decrease the costs low and improve the data encoding/management quality level. Such Centres need a ready made management information system in order to provide efficient services for all stakeholders.

Interactions between stakeholders Insurer (Optional) Government Cofinancing Regulation Microinsurance Practitioner (Trade unions, Cooperatives, MFIs, NGOs, and other points of association) & Their Branches Information and Contributions Consolidated Reporting Consolidated Premium, claim financial transactions SBPC Financing, Funds for treasury management, Members, dependants and contributions infos. Enrolment, claims reporting and other management indicators. Access to Individual File Information Use the services, Pay the co payment Empanels , Approve Cashless payment, pays bills. Request Cashless payment, sends bills.

Why another software ? ? ? Several existing in house MIS : Standalone, Adaptation limited to a context (access, . . ) of microfinance MIS with a lack of functions Third party administrator, Insurer internal MIS (not used by practitioners directly) A good starting point, but they all lack : openness contextual ability adaption & sharing to manage larger schemes

Mimis – Vision & Challenge A tool recognized as the best one micro insurance in various contexts A global database gathering valuable information for various microinsurance / social security risks, A new cooperation model based on complementarities & synergies between field practictioners, development partners and IT experts in various countries.

An innovative cooperation model Project Governance: the Professional Open Source discipline contribute to a project that you want to “own” or to be part of philosophy ensures that stakeholders’ contribution is good for themselves as well as for all others The community “hardens” the software, makes the project much cheaper. It can: share tools, using cases, validating requirements, reviewing and testing, documenting, translating, participating in help forum, fixing bugs, bringing scalability, . . . Open source means a certain freedom and openness but does not mean “no cost”.

Project committee Main role : Identify / hire / Manage a group of experts and assigned to research, analyse, specify, develop, and test. To develop the development community’s “ecosystem” and administrate openly the project components. To design and supervise the project road map, ensure proper open source governance. Deploy strategy including marketing support, services, engineering, training, references, and product management. Raise funds. Ensures the overall project cycle management discipline, timeline and transparency, as well as a free but controlled distribution with an ethical usage, and data sharing policy endorsement.

MIMIS - A cooperative puzzle MIMIS Core Framework Multiple instanciation & usage The project define the rules to define a new piece and how to integrate it in the puzzle A piece can be a specific local project with its own needs , funds and people. . .

Project Objectives & Timeline

Inside MIMIS. . . Mimis users Data Flow Mimis Modules A “Generic” Framework configurable and adaptable

Mimis Users Members/Clients of a microinsurance scheme [MBE] individuals, families, villagers, employees, members of a trade union, clients of an MFI Micro insurance practitioners: Local Front Office [LFO] and Practitioner Head Office [PHO]. cooperatives, mutuals, MFIs, federations of Self help groups, NGOs, trade unions Business Process Centre [BPC] business process unit, hosting skilled staff for performing data management, treasury management, claim management, Risk Management Health Care Services / benefits Providers [SBP] Database users [DBU] Development partners, Governments and international organizations, Financial partners, Researchers

Multiple Clients, multiple data flow

Mimis Module SDO Stats and Database Outputs Module CRM (Client Relationship Management) Module SBM (Service / Benefits Providers Management)

Central Module Enables the “instantiation” of Generic MIMIS in a particular context MIMIS generic, downloadable, from MIMIS web site, presentation, manuals, reference, with forum, registration application BPC registration management, license, accesses, data exchange protocols. Instantiation of MIMIS in BPC, Local standards setup, database and catalogues initialization, Accounting charter, Financial and operational management rules. (these rules are by default equal to the regional standards) Products setup with pricing and benefits structures and management rules. (Independent unit)

Module CRM Transactions between BPC, PHO, LFO and MBE PHO Creation by BPC with any N-Tier organization of LFO. PHO, LFO registration management MBE (policyholder and dependants/beneficiaries – group or not) registration, contributions and rights management) Products choice and marketing management for the PHO Product transactions management MBE (policy), LFO, PHO, BPC Accounting Information access and Reporting for MBE (policy), LFO, PHO, BPC To manage BPC accounts, cash flow, treasury

Module SBM Transactions between BPC, SBP and MBE SBP registration, empanelment, with standardized filing of the agreement/contract with BPC. To identify Member To give access to Member’s rights/ eligibility to benefits, To manage claim settlement process – cashless approval system To manage benefits and services settlement and expenses To manage SBP relationship and accounts Billing of benefits/services to member, to non members, to BPC Information access and reporting for MBE (Claims), LFO, PHO, and BPC Standard data exchange with external hospital management software

Module SDO Transactions between MIMIS central and database users To consolidate, synchronize the database To enable data sharing between each MIMIS and monitoring platform (such as GIMI) To provide a global and transversal easy-to-browse statistical database To provide predefined indicators & reports One challenge here is to be able to separate exportable data from confidential data.

From a generic towards a locally adapted information system Each context is different, each scheme is specific however a lot of technical management needs are common Build a “generic” application and instantiate in various context : modular plugin architecture mechanisms agnostic interface The generic MIMIS will have the ability to benefit from all of the adaptations done in each specific MIMIS and thus become progressively more adaptable while providing more and more functions

No, it is not a complex picture. . .

To conclude – an example

Potential risks Competition from a similar project/software: To “competition”, MIMIS project strategic answer will be “cooperation”. Development Costs: Take strong precautions in writing precise technical specifications and assessing each task’s development cost. Technical constraints (software & hardware) Asking for security, robustness, simplicity, multiple clients’ adaptability, . . . may lead to technical constraints. Budget limitations may lead to certain choices in terms of hardware, Net. Ware or ISP that could harm the business continuity or integrity. Technological innovation may make choices obsolete: Needs to constantly update our knowledge.

Next steps – towards objectives 1 & 2 A stable project framework is setup under professional open source governance Committees & Open source team are setup /defined. Project governance Project components Setup The generic MIMIS is developed and tested inventory MIMIS of existing MIS General Specifications

The end. . . thanks for your attention ? ? ? Any questions ?

Bangkok – Workgroup MIMIS What A “growing” framework How creating finding funds for a first light implementation, enlarge the identify an and enlarge a community new project and sharing possiblities interative approach (do not through away existing MIS) identify common missing module so that the evolution can be done with MIMIS in mind

Bangkok – Workgroup MIMIS NEW MIS-A - V 1 MIS-B - V 1 Core Framework MIS-A - V 2 MIS-B - V 2 Stats. Module Specifications

Workgroup MIMIS Issues : contribution show not be time consuming, no perpetual IT ressource or only available on a short time frame for a specific need Need of a first funding / project to prepare the core Tasks : Creating the community & choice of committee rules (licence, copyrigth, . . . ). A new name ? A logo ? Project space inventory a of existing MIS common language to compare system function Identify possible member for the commitee