metadata: authors: 0: author: Mahul,Olivier
1: author: Skees,Jerry R.
count: Mongolia
docna: 0: docna: Managing agricultural risk at the country
            level : the case of index-based livestock insurance in Mongolia
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
subtopic: Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases,Livestock and Animal Husbandry,Social Development & Poverty,Law and Justice Institutions,Natural Disasters
teratopic: Urban Development,Law and Development,Finance and Financial Sector Development
abstracts: cdata!: This paper describes the index-based
            livestock insurance program in Mongolia designed in the
            context of a World Bank lending operation with Government of
            Mongolia and implemented on a pilot basis in 2005.  This
            program involves a combination of self-insurance by herders,
            market-based insurance, and social insurance. Herders retain
            small losses, larger losses are transferred to the private
            insurance industry, and extreme or catastrophic losses are
            transferred to the government using a public safety net
            program.  A syndicate pooling arrangement protects
            participating insurance companies against excessive insured
            losses, with excess of loss reinsurance provided by the
            government.  The fiscal exposure of Government of Mongolia
            toward the most extreme losses is protected with a
            contingent credit facility.  The insurance program relies on
            a mortality rate index by species in each local region.  The
            index provides strong incentives to individual herders to
            continue to manage their herds so as to minimize the impacts
            of major livestock mortality events; individual herders
            receive an insurance payout based on the local mortality,
            irrespective of their individual losses.  This project
            offered the first opportunity to design and implement an
            agriculture insurance program using a country-wide
            agricultural risk management approach.  During the first
            sales season, 7 percent of the herders in the three pilot
            regions purchased the insurance product.
geo_reg_key: 517198,119225,517191
repnme: repnme: Managing agricultural risk at the country
            level : the case of index-based livestock insurance in Mongolia
display_title: Managing agricultural risk at the
            country level : the case of index-based livestock insurance
            in Mongolia
listing_relative_url: /research/2007/08/8115181/managing-agricultural-risk-country-level-case-index-based-livestock-insurance-mongolia
topicv3: Social Insurance m1326950 751,Climate Change Mitigation m1327079 579,Earthquake m1503308 3154,Mortality m1504365 3661,Livestock m1504490 4024
publishtoextweb_dt: 2010-07-01T00:00:00Z
historic_topic: Urban Development,Law and Development,Finance and Financial Sector Development
no_of_pages: 37
author_keys: 0: author_key: 675198
1: author_key: 144760
model_extractions: WPS4325 Policy ReseaRch WoRking PaPeR 4325 Managing Agricultural Risk at the Country Level: The Case of Index-Based Livestock Insurance in Mongolia _Olivier Mahul Jerry Skees_ The World Bank Financial and Private Sector Development Financial Markets for Social Safety Net Unit August 2007
Policy ReseaRch WoRking PaPeR 4325

# **Abstract**

This paper describes the index-based livestock insurance program in Mongolia designed in the context of a World Bank lending operation with Government of Mongolia and implemented on a pilot basis in 2005. This program involves a combination of self-insurance by herders, market-based insurance, and social insurance. Herders retain small losses, larger losses are transferred to the private insurance industry, and extreme or catastrophic losses are transferred to the government using a public safety net program. A syndicate pooling arrangement protects participating insurance companies against excessive insured losses, with excess of loss reinsurance provided by the government. The fiscal exposure of Government of Mongolia toward the most extreme losses is protected with a contingent credit facility. The insurance program relies on a mortality rate index by species in each local region. The index provides strong incentives to individual herders to continue to manage their herds so as to minimize the impacts of major livestock mortality events; individual herders receive an insurance payout based on the local mortality, irrespective of their individual losses. This project offered the first opportunity to design and implement an agriculture insurance program using a country-wide agricultural risk management approach. During the first sales season, 7 percent of the herders in the three pilot regions purchased the insurance product.

This paper—a product of the Financial Markets for Social Safety Net Department—is part of a larger effort in the department to develop effective and sustainable risk management and financial products for agriculture. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The author may be contacted at omahul@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
Managing Agricultural Risk at the Country Level: The Case of Index-Based Livestock Insurance in Mongolia

**Olivier Mahul and Jerry Skees**<sup>1</sup>

# **Acknowledgements**

Funding for much of the development of this work was obtained from the FIRST Initiative and a special PHRD grant from Government of Japan. Numerous individuals have been involved in these efforts. Many professionals in Mongolia have been particularly helpful. Invaluable assistance from Ms. Tungalag Lailan, Director of the project implementing unit and her staff as well as Mr. Enkh-Amgalan, President of CPR are gratefully acknowledged. Anne Murphy of GlobalAgRisk has been involved in the project since the fall of 2004. Professionals from RMSI of India and the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation of Alberta, Canada were involved in providing risk assessment and actuarial advice respectively. From the World Bank side, special thanks to Mr. Nathan Belete (task team leader) and Andrew Goodland and numerous others, including Mr. Rodney Lester who contributed significantly to the conceptual development regarding the financing of these risk.

**Key words** : livestock insurance; catastrophe insurance; reinsurance; social disaster assistance; index-based insurance.

> 1 Mahul is a Program Manager, Insurance for the Poor Program, with the Financial Private Development Sector Vice presidency of the World Bank. Skees is President of GlobalAgRisk, Inc. and the H.B. Price Professor of agricultural policy and risk in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Kentucky.
# **1. Introduction**

This paper presents the background and rationale for the Index-based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) project in Mongolia. The Government of Mongolia and the World Bank signed a loan for this project in May of 2005. The first sales occurred in 2006 to cover the mortality of livestock for the first five months of 2007. Sales were greater than anticipated with nearly 10 percent of the herders purchasing the insurance in the first year. Of more significance, financial intermediaries offering loans to herders provided lower interest rates to those herders purchasing this new form of insurance.

The Mongolian countryside remains a herder-based economy. Agriculture contributes nearly one-third of the national GDP and herding accounts for over 80 percent of agriculture. Animals provide sustenance, income, and wealth to protect nearly half the residents of Mongolia. Shocks to the well-being of animals have devastating implications for the rural poor and for the overall Mongolian economy. Major shocks are common as Mongolia has a harsh climate where animals are herded with limited shelter. From 2000-2002, 11 million animals perished due to harsh winters ( _dzud)._ The government has struggled with the obvious question of how to address this problem.

In 2001, Government of Mongolia (GoM) requested assistance from the World Bank to address a problem that has plagued Mongolia for centuries – tremendous death rates in the livestock population. While the country had a social livestock insurance program during the communist period, several attempts to pass a livestock insurance law in recent years have failed. Based on the first involvement from the World Bank in 2001, Skees and Enkh-Amgalan (2002) recommended an index-based insurance program using mortality rates by species and _soum_<sup>_2_</sup> . This recommendation was motivated by significant concerns regarding moral hazard, adverse selection, and extreme monitoring costs that would accompany a traditional livestock insurance program in the vast open spaces of Mongolia. Another concern that was highlighted involved the potential for extreme loss exposure associated with any livestock insurance program in Mongolia.

Since the initial recommendations to implement index-based livestock insurance, a significant policy debate within Mongolia has been occurring about alternatives for insuring and financing the extreme losses associated with the death of large numbers of animals. Given the difficultly in finding solutions that would address both the social and market dimensions of this problem in a fashion that would not strain the state’s limited fiscal resources, GoM requested further research on this issue. The policy recommendations reported in this paper are a product of conceptual developments that have been ongoing inside the World Bank on agricultural insurance and the research that has followed for the GoM.

The core recommendations involve a combination of self-insurance by herders, market-based insurance and social insurance. Herders retain small losses, larger losses are transferred to the private insurance industry, and extreme or catastrophic losses are transferred to the GoM using a public safety net program. Given that this is a novel approach to a significant problem in Mongolia, the GoM was persuaded to begin a pilot program.

The proposed insurance program relies on a mortality rate index by species in a local region ( _sum_ ). The index provides strong incentives to individual herders to continue to manage their herds so as to minimize the impacts of major livestock mortality events; individual herders receive an insurance payout based on the local mortality, irrespective of their individual losses. The insurance would pay out to individual herders whenever the mortality rate in the _soum_ exceeds a specific threshold. Finally, a 33 year time series on adult animal mortality is available for all _soums_ and for the five major species of animals (cattle, horses, camels, sheep and goats).

> 2 In Mongolia a _soum_ is equivalent to a county and an _aimag_ is equivalent to a state or province.

2
Such data are critical for developing actuarial information and for understanding the potential cost of alternative designs.

The large losses reported during 1999-2002 clearly demonstrated that Mongolian livestock is exposed to catastrophic risk and that the potential losses are well beyond the financial capacity of the Government and the domestic insurance market. The new insurance law, passed in 2004, was an important step to strengthen the insurance industry through improved regulation and also included a provision for introducing index based livestock insurance in Mongolia. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time an insurance law explicitly recognizes index-based insurance as insurance. Involving the insurance industry, operating on a commercial basis, has the potential to improve the sustainability of livestock insurance and contributes to strengthening the rural finance sector, which is a key element in the government strategy for rural economic diversification.

It is believed that the index-insurance product can be effectively underwritten, although significant financial exposure for a nascent insurance market that has extremely limited access to global reinsurance markets remains a significant challenge. Among the most novel aspects of the recommendations is the special financing facility established under this project. A syndicate pooling arrangement offers some opportunity to reduce the exposure for any individual insurer. This special pre-paid indemnity pool also assures that herder premiums will be protected until time of loss and that this unique line of business will not create financial spread for other lines of insurance for the insurance companies. Risks are layered out with insurers purchasing (unlimited) reinsurance capacity to a reinsurance fund that pays all herder losses beyond a certain threshold. Given that such a reinsurance fund cannot be built up fast enough to cover an early extreme loss, a World Bank contingent loan is also available to cover the most extreme losses.

This paper is organized as follows. The country agricultural risk management model developed by the World Bank is described in Section 2. Section 3 presents the risk assessment analysis of livestock mortality in Mongolia based on catastrophic risk modeling techniques. Section 4 describes the design of the Mongolian livestock insurance program. The pilot study is detailed in Section 5. Section 6 discussed challenges in the implementation and operation of the pilot project. Finally, the key issues are summarized in the conclusion.

# **2. Agricultural Production Shocks: Country Risk Management Approach**

Ex post funding by most governments in developing countries and international agencies has been seen as the only response to catastrophic losses. However, this approach turns out to be ineffective, inefficient and insufficient. A country agricultural risk management model is proposed, based on the experience of the World Bank’s Insurance for the Poor Program. Policy implications are derived from this model.

# **_2.1. Ex Post Funding: An Unsustainable Approach_**

Historically, most governments have not taken much interest in ex ante management of natural disasters because of low perceived vulnerability levels and the fact that most severe hazards manifest themselves very infrequently. In addition to this cognitive failure, there has been a willingness on the part of the international community to provide post disaster funding for vulnerable countries exposed to catastrophic events. The World Bank alone has disbursed more than US$40 billion of emergency and reconstruction loans (ERL) over the last 20 years.

As a consequence of underdeveloped domestic insurance markets and the lack of risk awareness or economic incentives to engage in ex ante risk management, governments generally adopt reactive approaches to natural disasters, relying on domestic budgets, including diversion of resources from other projects, and on extensive financing from international donors. In fact, emergency funding for reconstruction from international donors has become a linchpin of some 3
governments’ strategies for funding disaster reconstruction which is often supplemented by emergency reconstruction lending programs from the World Bank and other multilateral development banks. In addition, it is usually hard for the donor community to credibly enforce any pledges to reduce ex post assistance if ex ante mitigation measures have not been implemented because of the overriding humanitarian considerations once a disaster occurs.

Ex post funding approaches are inefficient. The lack of advance planning and resource allocation prevents funds from being immediately available after a disaster. Multilateral assistance can take a long time to disburse. As a result, the adverse social and developmental impacts of disrupted economic activity are far greater due to the delayed response. In addition there are no appropriate economic signals under this approach and country risk, and hence contingent liabilities, can escalate to unsustainable levels.

Ex post funding approaches are ineffective. Resource allocation after a disaster may be ad hoc. Resources may be targeted on bureaucratic or political considerations, rather than directed to those expenditures and investments that are most likely to restore economic activity promptly. The diversion of limited fiscal resources away from development projects, creating high economic and social value added, to politically motivated low net return purposes can have considerable opportunity costs and long term adverse economic effects.

Ex post funding approaches are insufficient. Most developing countries face ongoing fiscal constraints. The quantity of funds available for relief and reconstruction may be far off from what is needed, particularly in the aftermath of a disaster. This leaves a substantial resource gap.

A fundamental consequence of natural disasters is that they tend to have the greatest impact on the poor, usually located in rural areas, who are affected most by these adverse events. Scarce multilateral resources, which could have been utilized for growth and poverty reduction goals, are thus diverted by catastrophes, or more precisely, by the lack of appropriate ex ante disaster risk financing strategies.

This does not mean however that ex post disaster funding from donors and international development banks cannot play an important role in the country’s risk management strategy, but that over-reliance on this approach has major limitations in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and sufficiency. The challenge is thus to build a comprehensive risk financing strategy where the role of market-based insurance and social programs are clearly defined. Having pre-defined rules that are tied to premium payments or fee payments for social programs may also mitigate inequities that may occur when political decisions must be about how to distribute large sums of emergency disaster aid, often arriving well after the disaster.

# **_2.2. Country Agricultural Risk Management Model_**

By ensuring that sufficient liquidity exists very soon after a disaster, modern funding approaches can help to speed recovery, ensure the scarce government funds are well used and reduce the risk of moral hazard. In addition, catastrophe risk management can assist countries in the optimal allocation of risk in the economy, which may result in higher growth, better mitigation, and more effective poverty alleviation.

The approach advocated by the World Bank is to develop risk funding solutions that would provide countries with strong incentives to engage in active risk management and thus over time achieve significant reduction in their growing vulnerability and risk exposures. Such a major turnaround however would require linking, at least to some extent, donors’ post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction grants and emergency loans from major development banks to progress achieved by countries in ex-ante catastrophe risk management. This approach also rests on the notion of leveraging the Bank’s emergency funding with that of international reinsurance and capital markets. Only by combining the funding capacity of donor countries, development 4
banks and global reinsurance and capital markets, would developing countries be in the position to adequately meet their demands for risk capital to fund economic losses inflicted by natural disasters.

In the larger industrial countries, losses from natural disasters are typically funded through a combination of private risk financing arrangements and an efficient public revenue system relying on wide and deep taxation catchments. In the case of developing countries, which have relatively low tax ratios and ongoing fiscal pressures, funding sources for post disaster reconstruction tend to be more varied, with a strong emphasis on assistance from international donors. Multilaterally sourced infrastructure loans and relief aid from donor agencies are among the most common sources of such disaster funding.

A number of developing countries exposed to natural disasters have a limited capacity to absorb economic shocks caused by such disasters, thus relying on external sources of funding. Due to agency and information problems, new external capital is usually more expensive than internal capital (Froot, Scharfstein and Stein 1993). These frictional costs make the country risk averse to catastrophic events and increase the value of ex ante risk management strategies.<sup>3</sup> The World Bank Insurance for the Poor Program has been developing a country catastrophic risk management model which is partly based on corporate risk management principles but also factors in key economic and social metrics such as government fiscal profiles, the living conditions of the poor, and investment in risk mitigation (Gurenko and Lester 2004, Mahul and Gurenko 2006). This risk management approach at the country level relies on the assessment of the country fiscal exposure when all the cost-effective risk mitigation measures have been implemented, the identification of potential funding gaps between damages sustained by the country and funds available, and the financing of these gaps through private capital markets, and World Bank lending instruments.

This framework has been extended to natural disasters in agriculture (Goodwin and Mahul 2004, Gurenko and Mahul 2004, Mahul 2005). It can be broken down into five main pillars.

**_Differentiating market-based insurance and social insurance._** The inherent lack of clarity regarding the objectives of the public intervention in agricultural insurance has contributed to its inefficiencies.  Social insurance, or the safety-net, aims at assuring a minimum level of economic security to all farmers, and particularly those involved in low profit activities.  These social objectives rely on wealth transfer instruments.  Market-based insurance is oriented toward viable business activities that generate enough profit to cover insurance premium.  These instruments, which are based on sound actuarial principles, should apply only to viable farms whose survival may be jeopardized by the occurrence of an insured event.

**_Assessing agricultural production risks._** The existence of reliable and accurate long-term loss data series is a precondition for the development of any market-based product, as they are used to assess the future probable losses.  Individual farm data are almost always missing or unreliable. Consequently, loss assessment is usually performed using aggregate data.  This analysis based on catastrophic risk modeling techniques provides objective estimates of potential losses and captures the spatial correlation of losses caused by widespread events (e.g., droughts, floods, epidemics).  The following measures of loss can be estimated either from historical data or from losses simulated with probabilistic risk models:

- _Value at risk_ is the total loss exposure of the assets at risk.

> 3 In a perfect market where external capital would not be more expensive than internal capital, i.e., in the absence of friction costs, risk management would be irrelevant.

5
- _Annual average loss_ (AAL) is the expected loss per year when averaged over a long period of time.

- _Probable maximum loss_ (PML) is the largest likely loss for a given return period, e.g., one in 100 year event (i.e., 1% frequency).

**_Financing agricultural production risks_ .** Risk financing strategies deal with the remaining part of the risks that cannot be mitigated with cost-effective preventive measures.  They are financed through farmers’ self-retention, private financial markets, governments and international donors through an appropriate layering of risks (see Figure 1).

- The _bottom layer of risk_ includes high frequency (e.g., occurring once every five years or more frequently) but low consequence risks that affect farmers from a variety of almost independent risks.  In many cases, these losses are caused by inappropriate management decisions and are thus exposed to moral hazard and adverse selection problems. They must be retained by the farmers and financed by individual savings/credit.

- The _mezzanine layer of risk_ includes less frequent (e.g., occurring once to six times every 30 years) but more severe risks that may affect several farmers at the same time (e.g., hail, frost).  The private insurance industry has demonstrated its ability to cover these losses caused by localized adverse events and commercial farmers have shown their willingness to pay for named peril insurance.

- The _top layer of risk_ includes low frequency (e.g., occurring once in 30 years or less frequently) but high severity risks.  These catastrophic risks are by definition not well documented and the probable maximum loss can be very large.  The cost of transferring these risks, i.e., the insurance premium, can be high compared to the annual average loss (e.g., five to ten times the AAL), making (re)insurance an inefficient risk financing mechanism.  In addition, farmers may be unwilling to purchase this insurance because they tend to underestimate their exposure to catastrophic risks (cognitive failure) and rely on post disaster emergency relief.  Governments usually cover these very infrequent losses through compulsory insurance programs or social disaster relief programs. Innovative financial products developed by capital markets, known as Alternative Risk Transfer (ART) instruments (e.g., catastrophe bonds, catastrophe options, contingent debt), may offer new risk transfer opportunities to the insurance markets and governments.

**Figure 1. Agricultural production risk layering**

<!-- Start of picture text --> Capital and reinsurance markets<br>Government<br>International institutions<br>Insurance/reinsurance<br>Savings/credit<br>Exceedance probability<br>Loss<br><!-- End of picture text --> 6
**_Agricultural insurance pool._** Agricultural insurance pools can contribute to offering affordable and effective insurance coverage through an efficient and low cost distribution mechanism that allows them to retain part of the agricultural risks in the country.  They aim to act as a center of technical excellence to support insurers, ensure efficient local retention by pooling non-retainable risks, and get optimal pricing from reinsurers by providing a partly diversified portfolio.  Selfinsurance funds in Mexico (Fondos) offer a valuable illustration of these mutuality-type organizations among farmers (see Box 1).  Catastrophe insurance pools have also been established to help domestic insurance companies finance catastrophic property losses (e.g., housing and infrastructure losses) caused by earthquakes, floods or cyclones, and to gain access to international reinsurance markets.  The World Bank provided technical and financial support to the government of Turkey for the creation of the first ever catastrophe insurance pool in middle income countries, the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (see Box 2).

**_Product development_** .  Index-based insurance is an alternative form of insurance that makes payments based on an index, irrespective of the individual losses. It allows the agricultural sector to transfer covariate production losses caused by widespread weather events (e.g., floods, droughts) or epidemics to financial and reinsurance markets. Index-based contracts offer advantages over traditional individual insurance (no moral hazard or adverse selection, low administrative costs, standardized product) but it exposes the contract buyer to imperfect indemnification, i.e., the possibility that the payout is different to the individual loss (basis risk), and relies on the quality of the data.  Table 1 summarizes the main tradeoffs to be considered in the selection of an effective insurance index.  Experiences in index-based insurance are multiple, but still remain marginal.  Area yield crop insurance, where the index is based on the average yield in a given geographical area, has been offered in India, Brazil, Canada and the USA (Skees, et al. 1997). Parametric insurance (e.g., rainfall insurance) has been offered in Canada, Mexico and India.  As described in the subsequent sections, a livestock mortality index insurance has been offered to herders in Mongolia since 2005.

**Table 1. Index effectiveness**

||Individual<br>index|Area-based<br>index|Parametric<br>index|
|---|---|---|---|
|Easily comprehensible|Yes|Often|Yes|
|Basis risk|No|Yes|Yes|
|Delays in claim settlement|Sometimes|Yes|Rarely|
|Moral hazard/adverse selection|Yes|Sometimes|No|
|Reliable data|Rarely|Sometimes|Often|
|Index manipulation|Yes|Rarely|Sometimes|
|Administrative costs|High|Low|low|

Source: authors.

# **Box 1. Fondos in Mexico**

<mark>Fondos are self-insurance funds that have been operating in Mexico since 1988. In 2004, more than 240 Fondos provided insurance against agricultural production risks (including hail, drought, frost, floods, diseases, pests) to their members, accounting for 50 percent of the total insured agricultural area in Mexico. The total liability of the Fondos on an annual basis was approximately US$$400 million dollars in 2004. They are mainly concentrated in agricultural areas with productive potential and financial viability. Subsistence and poor non-commercial farmers are supposed to be covered through the Government sponsored national disaster scheme FONDEN.</mark> <mark>According to Mexican laws, Fondos are non-profit organizations constituted by the farmers as civil associations without the need to provide any capital endowment, except their willingness to</mark> 7
<mark>associate between themselves. From a risk-financing perspective, Fondos pool crop yield risks from farmers with similar risk profiles. The concept of insurance through mutuality-type organizations was developed in Mexico based on a sound insurance market approach (including sound underwriting techniques, adequate financial reserves, loss adjustment procedures based and actuarially sound premium rates developed), while taking advantage of mutuality type organizational principles and a structure of incentives to keep transaction costs under control.</mark> <mark>The Fondos can not sell insurance to their members unless they have a proper reinsurance treaty negotiated before the beginning of any specific agricultural cycle of production. Since these organizations do not have capital to guarantee the solvency of the Fondos, they must buy enough reinsurance to guarantee that the members of the Fondo will receive the full amount of indemnity in the case of a peril (no default risk). The regulation requires that any reinsurance contract negotiated by the Fondos should be defined to absorb any exceeding indemnities after the financial reserves of the Fondos have been exhausted. Therefore, an unlimited stop loss reinsurance treaty is implicitly requested. Historically, the state-owned reinsurance company Agroasemex has offered to the Fondos this unlimited stop loss program. The Government supports also a training program to enhance the operations of the funds through Agroasemex. The training programs include technical aspects related to the underwriting and loss adjustment procedures, the development of new products, accounting, legal aspects, etc.</mark> _<mark>Source</mark>_ <mark>: Ibarra and Mahul (2004).</mark>

# **Box 2. Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool**

<mark>In the aftermath of the August 1999 Marmara earthquake, The Turkish Government with World Bank technical and financial support created the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP). The program operates as a catastrophic risk transfer and risk financing mechanism that limits the government’s financial exposure to future natural disasters by absorbing up to UD$ 1 billion from Turkish homeowners. Under the program, compulsory earthquake cover is introduced for all property-tax paying dwellings.</mark> <mark>The government aimed at creating a pool in which sufficient reserves could be accumulated over time, thus making Turkey less vulnerable to future earthquakes. The key objectives for the TCIP defined by the Government of Turkey were:</mark> <mark>- Ensure that all property tax paying domestic dwellings have earthquake insurance coverage;</mark> <mark>- Reduce government fiscal exposure to recurrent earthquake;</mark> <mark>- Transfer catastrophic risk to the international reinsurance market;</mark> <mark>- Encourage risk mitigation through the insurance mechanism.</mark> <mark>The World Bank provided the initial capitalization of the TCIP through a committed contingent loan facility of US$100 million, extended to US$180 million in 2004. Although the risk capital requirements of TCIP are much higher, they are funded through commercial reinsurance, in the amount of US$750 million, and the build-up of surplus. The disbursement of the World Bank facility would be triggered by occurrence of a loss, as evidenced by insurance claims from a major earthquake. The line of credit has now expired as the pool has now built up adequate internal reserves.</mark> <mark>The TCIP’s earthquake insurance is legally compulsory for many urban Turkish homeowners, although the compulsion is not well enforced. Local insurers act as distributors of the TCIP (they do not currently retain any fraction of TCIP’s earthquake risk), in exchange of a commission (1520% of written premium), and provide additional coverage in excess of that offered by the pool. Since its inception in 2000, the TCIP’s penetration ratio has averaged 17% but is now in excess of 20%.</mark> _<mark>Source</mark>_ <mark>: Gurenko et al. (2006)</mark> 8
# **_2.3. Policy Implications: Toward a Public-Private Partnership_**

Governments, with the help of international institutions like the World Bank, can create an economic and legal environment that facilitates the emergence of a competitive insurance market and provides farmers with incentives to engage in risk financing strategies. This should rely on a public-private partnership between the government and the domestic insurance industry to address the following challenges:

- _Data management_ . An efficient data management system is critical to the development of insurance products. It aims to (i) build accurate and complete historic databases and (ii) secure future data measurements from fraud and abuse.

- _Regulatory and supervisory framework._ This framework is intended to ensure that (i) insurers have the financial resources required to pay all claims as they become due and (ii) insurers treat consumers in an equitable manner in all financial dealings. It is based on a set of rules that foster financial sector stability and public protection, while ensuring market competitiveness and efficiency.

- _Technical expertise._ Agricultural insurance is a very technical field. At the top administrative level, it requires expertise in the design of the insurance scheme, the establishment of the terms and conditions of coverage, and the actuarial aspects of insurance. At the local level, there is a need for personnel who can explain agricultural insurance to the farmers and for personnel skilled in the functions of underwriting and loss adjustment.

- _Risk financing entity._ Governments should only finance losses that cannot be transferred to the private market at acceptable costs. They should focus on catastrophic losses, acting as reinsurers/lenders of last resort, when the financial resources of the domestic insurance industry are scarce and the access to international reinsurance markets is limited. This temporary risk arrangement should allow insurance companies to build up reserves and to retain larger layers of risk over time. The resulting risk exposure of governments should be adequately financed through an appropriate country risk financing strategy including, e.g., reserve funds, reinsurance and contingent credit facilities.

- _Information and education_ . Information and education campaigns should be undertaken to reduce the widespread lack of insurance culture among farmers.

# **3. Livestock Mortality in Mongolia**

# **_3.1. Mongolian Livestock Sector_**

The agricultural sector plays a central role in the Mongolian economy, contributing around onethird of national GDP. The most important agricultural activity is livestock husbandry, which has over an 80 percent share of agricultural GDP and supports at least half the population. Livestock provides an important source of income, jobs and food security, and a means for households to invest and store their wealth. However, the country is prone to regular extreme climatic events that can cause high rates of livestock mortality, jeopardizing rural livelihoods. In particular, the frequent droughts and severe winters (known as _dzuds_ ) can devastate herds. During the period between 1999 and 2002, one-third of the national herd was lost in successive _dzuds_ .

The importance of livestock to the livelihoods of poor rural households has increased in recent years with the shift from collectivized farming to family-based herding during the 1990s. As a result of economic restructuring, the number of herding families doubled from 1990-1997, and 9
Mongolia’s overall herd size increased from 25 to 31 million, increasing the pressure on grazing resources.

The Government of Mongolia has prioritized the livestock sector and, with support from donors, is responding to these disasters and introducing a program of sectoral reform. This includes greater flexibility in pasture land tenure, coupled with increased investment in rural infrastructure and services. A major thrust of government and donor intervention is the support for improved pastoral risk management. However these sectoral reforms and approaches are not sufficient in the face of catastrophic weather events. Although the State Reserves Agency works to mitigate the effects of _dzud,_ when, due to extreme conditions, catastrophic livestock mortality arises there has been no insurance. Herders have to rely upon traditional informal coping mechanisms and ad hoc support from Government and international agencies. For affected areas, after immediate relief the main longer term support has been through restocking programs. Evaluation has shown that these can be expensive, relatively inefficient and fail to provide the right incentives for herders. Finally, restocking during a period where animals and pasture conditions are poor can actually increase livestock mortality in the following year.

The management of risk in the livestock sector requires a combination of approaches. Pastoral risk mitigation can better prepare herders for moderate weather events. For _dzud_ events, however, high levels of livestock mortality are often unavoidable even for the most experienced herders, and pastoral and herd management must be complemented by risk financing mechanisms that provide herders with instant liquidity in the aftermath of a disaster.

Livestock insurance is a key element of risk financing. However, traditional individual livestock insurance (based on individual losses) has turned out to be ineffective in Mongolia: high loss adjustment costs due to the spread of animals over vast areas, ex ante moral hazard inducing herders’ failure to take all effective measures to protect their stock, ex post moral hazard leading herders to falsely report animal deaths are among the key endemic problems that plague traditional livestock insurance program in Mongolia. Monitoring individual herders in the vast territory of Mongolia is a nearly impossible task. Currently, the formal financial insurance products related to livestock mortality are unpopular among both insurance companies and livestock owners and are limited almost entirely to a small number of high value livestock.

# **_3.2. Livestock Losses_**

After the livestock privatization of 1992, the number of livestock in Mongolia increased by 17.5% percent, reaching 33.6 million by 2000. In the period 2000-2002, over 11 million adult animals died due to severe droughts followed by harsh winters ( _dzuds_ ). In 2004, the size of the Mongolian livestock herd was approximately 23 million. The composition by species was 45% sheep, 38% goats, 8% cattle, 8% horses and 1% camels.

Figure 2 shows the total losses faced by herders in Mongolia over the period 1971-2004, as a percentage of the total livestock value and as a percentage of 2004 GDP, estimated at US$1.4 billion (World Bank 2005). Annual total losses are less than 8 percent of the total livestock until 1999, and even less than 4 percent over the period 1994-1999. The years 2000-2002 show a dramatic increase in losses, reaching US$ 140 million (12% of the total livestock value) in 2000, and almost US$ 200 million in 2001 (17% of the total livestock value). The animal husbandry industry in Mongolia is thus exposed to macro exogenous shocks caused by adverse weather events. Such variability has negative effects on the growth of this industry which contributes onefourth of GDP and is important to the economic growth of the country.

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**Figure 2.  Livestock losses in Mongolia, 1971-2004**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 20.0%<br>18.0% % 2004 GDP<br>16.0% % livestock value<br>14.0%<br>12.0%<br>10.0%<br>8.0%<br>6.0%<br>4.0%<br>2.0%<br>0.0%<br>1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: National Statistics Office of Mongolia.

An analysis of hazard frequencies and intensities is critical to assessing the country’s exposure to livestock losses. Risk assessment models provide a set of metrics, i.e., quantitative measurements of potential losses with respect to the frequency of the events. As shown in Table 2 and Figure 3, the value of the Mongolian livestock in 2004 is estimated at US$971 million. The average annual loss is US$ 46 million, i.e., 5 percent of the total value of the livestock and 3.3 percent of 2004 GDP. However, the annual loss is highly variable, as a direct consequence of infrequent natural disasters, with a standard deviation estimated at US$ 36 million. Once every five years, the annual livestock loss would be US$ 53 million and this estimation goes up to US$ 143 million for catastrophic events occurring once every 30 years.

**Table 2. Livestock risk profile in Mongolia**

||US$, million|Percentage of<br>assets at risk|Percentage of<br>2004 GDP|
|---|---|---|---|
|Assets at risk (2004)|971|-|61.1%|
|Average annual loss|46|6.0%|3.7%|
|Standard deviation|36|4.6%|2.8%|
|PML (1 in 30 year event)|143|18.5%|11.3%|
|PML (1 in 20 year event)|107|13.9%|8.5%|
|PML (1 in 10 year event)|67|8.7%|5.3%|
|PML(1 in 5year event)|53|6.8%|4.2%|

Source: authors.

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**Figure 3. Livestock loss estimate - Exceedance probability curve**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 100%<br>90%<br>80%<br>70%<br>60%<br>50%<br>40%<br>30%<br>20%<br>10%<br>0%<br>0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200<br>loss (USD, million)<br>Exceedance probability<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: authors.

# **_3.3. Livestock Mortality Rates_**

The Government of Mongolia has been conducting an annual census of adult animals (cattle, sheep, goats, horses and camels) and the reporting of animal mortality for more than 50 years. This process is regulated by several laws and by-laws. Mortality rates, defined as the ratio of losses of adult animals in a given year to the census of adult animals the previous year, can be calculated for each species at the _soum_ level over the period 1971-2004. It is noteworthy that the losses of adult animals reflect all causes of loss, including diseases.

These mortality rates capture the heterogeneity of losses among the species and the geographic areas. Based on the 33 years and 324 soums, Table 3 presents some insights about the frequency of mortality rates (MR) by species. Cattle are more frequently exposed to minor losses (MR lower than 5%) and catastrophic losses (MR higher than 20%) than the other species.

**Table 3. Frequency of annual mortality rate, by species**

|Morality rate|Cattle|Sheep|Goat|Horse|Camel|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|0% to 5%|72.9%|70.1%|71.7%|72.2%|64.0%|
|5% to 7.5%|10.6%|14.3%|12.8%|12.6%|17.3%|
|7.5% to 10%|4.9%|6.2%|5.8%|6.1%|8.4%|
|10% to 20%|6.5%|6.9%|7.3%|6.3%|9.2%|
|20% and more|5.2%|2.6%|2.5%|2.8%|1.1%|

Source: authors.

The mortality rates also differ significantly by regions, as shown on Figure 4. They are higher in the southern regions of Mongolia, near the Gobi desert, and in north-west part of the country.

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<!-- Start of picture text --> Percent Mortality ~ | ermmm ee cr SY Loet *<br>Mm <o a p—/ 4 - =<br>E_] 005-04 ea<br><!-- End of picture text -->
# **4. Designing a Livestock Insurance Program**

# **_4.1. Index-based Livestock Insurance_**

Attempts to develop individual livestock insurance in Mongolia have been unsuccessful in recent years. This traditional form of insurance, where indemnities are calculated for each insured farmer on the basis of individual claims, simply cannot work in Mongolia because (i) individual historic data are not available and thus insurer cannot have adequate information on individual herders, creating classic moral hazard and adverse selection problems, (ii) collection of individual data would necessitate tremendous equipment and personnel investments in the vast geographic area of Mongolia, and (iii) individual loss adjustments would be very costly or nearly impossible.

An alternative approach is to develop a collective system for indemnifications: indemnity payments are based on an external index designed to reflect the loss incurred by the herders. Such schemes are known as index-based insurance. Area-yield insurance programs, where the index is the aggregate yield in a given geographical area, have been implemented in India, Mexico or Spain. Weather-based insurance contracts, where the index is based on some weather parameters (e.g., rainfall, temperature) have been investigated in numerous countries and implemented in Canada and in India. These schemes present some advantages (e.g., reduction of moral hazard and adverse selection, lower administrative costs), but their main impediment is the presence of basis risk, i.e., the imperfect correlation between the insurance indemnity and the individual loss.

Weather-based insurance was considered as a first alternative to individual insurance because Mongolia has reasonable historical weather records to support the risk analysis. However, the infrastructure of the weather system is under-funded and has stations that are far apart, limiting the information needs required for weather-based insurance. Furthermore, winter _dzuds_ are complex events, consisting of multiple weather phenomena over a period of time, and sometimes non-weather factors, making the classification of risk highly problematic.<sup>4</sup> Skees and Enkh-Amgalan (2002) proposed to design an index-based insurance product that would indemnify herders based on the mortality rate of adult animals in a given area. The index-based livestock insurance (IBLI) would pay indemnities whenever the adult mortality rate exceeds a specific threshold for a localized region (e.g., the _soum_ in Mongolia). It is simpler than weatherbased insurance, and is less prone to moral hazards, adverse selection, and high administrative costs of individual insurance. Importantly, this system provides strong incentives to individual herders to continue to manage their herds so as to minimize the impacts of major _dzud_ events: if a better herder has no losses when their neighbors has large losses, the better herder is rewarded for the extra effort by receiving a payment based on the area losses. Finally, a 33 year time series on adult animal mortality is available for all _soums_ and for the five major species of animals. Such data are critical for developing actuarial information and for understanding the potential cost of alternative designs.

# **_4.2. Layering Livestock Risk_**

Previous government efforts to develop viable agricultural insurance programs in many developed countries and developing countries have been frustrated by the inherent lack of clarity regarding the objectives that range from social safety nets to commercial insurance. Governments have started to realize that these programs are no longer financially sustainable. For example, Government of India has recently decided to reform the current crop insurance scheme and to

> 4 Initial results showed a low correlation between livestock mortality rates and weather parameters (rainfall, minimum temperature, maximum temperature). However, options will be further considered for linking the index-based livestock insurance product to other indicators such as weather data and/or indices for range vegetation conditions (e.g. normalized, differentiated vegetation index – NDVI).

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place it on an actuarial path.<sup>5</sup> Such a sound financial and actuarial approach aims to introduce more discipline in the program and to transfer catastrophic losses to the international reinsurance market.

The government may have limited comparative advantage to reduce risk, compared to the private insurance industry (Priest 1996). The risk aggregation function, through the law of large numbers, performs well with relatively small samples when individual risks are independent. In this context, the government’s size and scope is not required for the risk aggregation function to perform well. Insurers control adverse selection by segregating the individual risks. Low insurance premiums are offered to low-risk producers, while higher premiums are charged to high-risk producers as a signal of their true risk exposure. The insurance industry thus plays a central role in discovering the true cost of risk. However, segregation is often viewed as socially unacceptable because it does not meet some social and solidarity objectives. As a consequence, public insurance is likely to engage low efforts to control adverse selection through risk segregation and to offer some average premium to all parties. Under voluntary insurance, this absence of segregation leads to the death spiral of adverse selection. In this case, compulsory insurance may be viewed as a solution to adverse selection as it forces low-risk producers to stay in the insurance pool. However, this is not a risk reducing effect but a wealth redistribution effect from the low-risk agents, who over-pay their premiums, to the high-risk agents, who under-pay their premiums. The ex ante control of moral hazard is based on risk sharing through coinsurance and deductibles, and exclusions on insurance coverage. This limited coverage is usually inconsistent with the government’s willingness to offer farmers universal coverage against all sources of risk. As in the case of adverse selection, social objectives may prevent the government from controlling efficiently moral hazard problems. However, the government may have a comparative advantage in absorbing catastrophic losses that are beyond the financial capacity of the insurance industry. This is because it is able to spread these losses across generations and to implement the solidarity principle through an appropriate wealth transfer mechanism.

The dual goals of providing commercial insurance in the private insurance sector and social insurance in the public sector are addressed through the following layering of livestock risk (see Figure 6).

- High frequency but low severity losses, occurring approximately once every five years or more frequently, are retained by the herders and managed through risk mitigation activities or individual capital (e.g., savings, credit).

- Less frequent but more severe losses, occurring approximately once every 5 to 25 years, are financed by a commercial insurance product, _Base Insurance Product_ (BIP). This product covers the mezzanine layer of risk. Herders pay premiums priced at commercial rates, i.e., including a risk (reserve) load and an administrative load. This product is sold on a voluntary basis.

- Catastrophic losses, occurring approximately once every 25 years or more, are covered by a social safety-net product, _Disaster Response Product_ (DRP). This social product complements the commercial product. The rationale for this top layer of risk is that the domestic insurance industry in Mongolia could not retain such catastrophic losses and could not transfer it out of the country because of the limited access to international reinsurance and capital markets.

> 5 The National Agriculture Insurance Scheme in India is the largest crop insurance program worldwide in terms of insured farmers, with approximately 17 million in 2006.

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**Figure 6. Livestock Risk Layering**

<!-- Start of picture text --> Estimated return period<br>Disaster Response<br>program<br>1 in 25 years<br>Base Insurance<br>Product<br>1 in 5 years<br>Self-retention<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: authors.

BIP and DRP payments are based on the _soum_ mortality rate, as reported by the National Statistical Office of the Government of Mongolia. The attachment point (strike) and the exhaustion point (cap) of the BIP are set according to the estimated return of period mentioned above. Therefore, the attachment points should vary from 7% to 10% depending on the species and the _soums_ and the exhaustion points should vary from 25% to 30%. In the proposed insurance policy to be pilot tested, only one strike at 7% and two caps at 25 or 30% are offered to the herders for the sake of simplicity, but it is expected that at least two strikes (7% and 10%) will be proposed to the herders in the near future. Box 3 describes how BIP and DRP work.

# **Box 3. How BIP and DRP work**

<mark>Herders pay a premium based on the value of their animals reported and the relative risk in the</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>that they select. The</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>is selected based on herder’s knowledge of where his/her animals are most exposed during the year. Herders are able to insure between 25 and 100 percent of the estimated value of their animals. Payments begin once the predetermined threshold of mortality for the</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>(strike) and species is exceeded. The payment rate is capped once the mortality rate exceeds the exhaustion point (cap). BIP payments are the product of the payment rate times the value insured. Formally, the BIP indemnity schedule is</mark> _<mark>I</mark>_<sup>_BIP_</sup> <mark>(</mark> _<mark>MR</mark>_ <mark>) = (sum insured) x min { max [</mark> _<mark>MR</mark>_ <mark>−</mark> _<mark>strike</mark>_ <mark>0, ] ,</mark> _<mark>cap</mark>_ <mark>−</mark> _<mark>strike</mark>_ <mark>}</mark> , where MR is the reported <mark>mortality rate.</mark> <mark>DRP payments use the full value of animals as the base of value insured. The DRP pays for losses beyond the exhaustion point. Formally, the DRP indemnity schedule is</mark> _I_<sup>_DRP_</sup> ( _MR_ ) = (value of animals) x max [ _MR_ − _cap_ 0, ] .

<mark>As an example, consider a herder who has 36 sheep where the value of a sheep is 28,320 Tg (US$1 is approximately equal to Tg 1200). The herder decides to insure the total value = 28,320 Tg. x 36 ~ 1,000,000 Tg. The premium rate for the BIP, with a strike at 7% and a cap at 30%, is 1.4 %. The herder would pay 1.4 x .01 x 1,000,000 = 14,000 Tg as a premium.</mark> <mark>The mortality rate in the herder’s</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>during a bad</mark> _<mark>dzud</mark>_ <mark>year equals 35 %. Payment rate for the BIP is equal to 30% -7% = 23 %, and thus BIP are 23% x 1,000,000 Tg. = 230,000 Tg. Payment for the DRP equals (35%- 30%) x 1,000,000 Tg. = 50,000 Tg.</mark> <mark>In total, the herder thus receives payouts of 64,000 Tg.</mark> <u><mark>Source: Authors.</mark></u> 16
# **_4.3. Livestock Insurance Indemnity Pool_**

Despite this layering of livestock risk (i.e. that transfers the top layer to the government through a social insurance product), the domestic insurance industry in Mongolia is still exposed to significant losses through the commercial product BIP due to high spatial correlation of mortality for events in the 7% to 25% or 30% levels.

The Mongolian insurance market is underdeveloped and the regulatory and supervisory body is not fully effective (see Box 4). A new Law on Insurance, enacted in April 2004, came into effect on 1<sup>st</sup> January 2005. However, the new Financial Regulatory Committee (FRC) is unlikely to be fully effective in the supervision of the insurance sector for some years. This is especially true in the case of a catastrophic insurance offering such as index-based livestock insurance. Therefore, it is unlikely that the FRC will be well positioned or prepared to regulate and supervise the IBLI product in the near future. As a consequence, it became necessary to devise a separate and possibly temporary arrangement to market the IBLI product. The proposed arrangement is based on a contractual agreement between the participating insurance companies and the Government of Mongolia under which the livestock insurance business is considered as a specific class of business and consequently managed with specific rules. The unique characteristics of this line of business compared to other lines of property insurance are twofold. First, IBLI is exposed to catastrophic risks, mainly caused by harsh winters ( _dzuds_ ), and thus needs appropriate risk financing. Second, this new line of business is in a pilot stage, with all uncertainty associated with the launch of an innovative product. Early ring-fencing of the livestock business would thus protect it from excessive losses in other classes (the reverse issue is less relevant given the small initial volumes involved). A Livestock Insurance Indemnity Pool (LIIP) was accordingly established. The key objectives to be achieved through this annual insurance pool are the following:

- Herders must receive in full the indemnity payments that are due – no default risk;

- • A simple and stable structure for implementation in the short run that allows for flexibility in the future;

- Incentives for companies to sell the IBLI product;

- The insurance industry is insulated from catastrophic livestock losses;

- Incentives for companies to collaborate on the integrity of the system;

- The foundation is consistent with a new regulatory environment.

# **Box 4. Domestic insurance market in Mongolia**

<mark>The domestic insurance market is immature and undercapitalized. It was only opened to competition in the early 1990s, and the two state-owned insurance companies, Mongol Daatgal and Tushig were privatized in 2004. As of December 2005, 24 insurance companies are licensed and offer non-life insurance only (personal accident, property and liability).</mark> <mark>The 2005 annual gross premium volume was US$5.3 million, of which 61 percent was for property insurance (including aircraft insurance of the Mongolian airline MIAT for 25 percent), 30 percent was for liability insurance (including aircraft liability insurance for 15 percent) and 9 percent was for personal accident and health insurance. The total premium of individual livestock insurance and crop insurance accounted for 0.5 percent of the gross premiums.</mark> <mark>In 2005, the net income premium (gross income minus reinsurance premiums paid) was US$3.1 million. The premium volume represents 0.44 percent of Mongolian GDP and US$2.3 per capita. As a comparison, the insurance penetration, as a percent of GDP, is 0.57% in Vietnam, 0.61% in Philippine, 1.03 % in China, and 2.13% in Russia.</mark> <mark>The domestic insurance market is highly concentrated with the largest company, Mongol Daatgal, having a market share of 74%, and the three largest companies capturing an 82% market share.</mark> 17
<mark>In non-life insurance, the combined ratio is a standard measure of profitability used in the industry and by supervisors. It represents the profits or losses made on insurance operations, without the help of other income (e.g., investments, real estate, capital gains). The ratio is the total of the loss ratio, which represents the percentage of the claims paid in comparison with gross premiums, and the expense ratio, which is the percentage of the general expenses in comparison to the gross premiums. Insurance companies will normally have a combined ratio of around 100%, meaning that they experience a technical break even.. However, other sources of income usually transform this loss into profit. A ratio of less than 100% allows the insurance company to have a technical profit in addition to the investment profit. The combined ratio for the Mongolian (non life) insurance companies was at 56%. While the expense ratio of 34 percent is comparable to those of insurance companies in most countries, the loss ratio is remarkably low. Such a low loss ratio may be due to over priced insurance policies and/or, more probably, by a low level of reported claims.</mark> _<mark>Source</mark>_ <mark>: Authors, from Mongolian Insurance Supervisory Agency</mark> <u><mark>(2005)</mark></u> The syndicate pooling arrangement LIIP can be viewed as a joint venture established every year in which participating insurers subscribe capital. Insurance companies are given rights to sell the developed BIP product in exchange for their capital contributions. They are obligated to build up annual collective reserves into the LIIP at the beginning of the sales season. The GoM offers a stop loss reinsurance contract beyond the collective reserves, sold at an actuarially fair premium that is tied to the distribution of sales for each company.<sup>6</sup> In the initial years, a stop loss reinsurance treaty at 105 percent of the insurance premium volume (excluding operating costs) is in place. Funding for losses beyond 105 comes from the reinsurance premiums and a contingent credit from the World Bank.

In February of each sales season (starting in 2006), the participating insurance companies present a business plan with the expected sales by _soum_ . They also deposit into the LIIP the guarantee indemnity contribution (GIC), which equates the insurer’s expected portfolio reinsurance cost plus 5% of its expected written premium volume. This contribution represents their capital investment into this insurance program. After the sales closing date, they will deposit into the LIIP the herders’ premium volume, out of which the LIIP will pay the reinsurance cost of the 105% stop loss on the aggregate livestock losses. At the end of the insurance cycle, any surplus (in addition to the interest earnings) in the LIIP account will be distributed among the participating insurance companies based upon their premium volume brought to the pool.

The reinsurance premiums paid by the insurance companies to the GoM are put into a special reserve fund, BIP reinsurance reserves, and will be only used to pay reinsurance indemnities. The reinsurance premium paid by the LIIP to the government, and deposited in the BIP reinsurance reserve, may be higher than the actuarially fair reinsurance premium of the IBLI portfolio because of the pooling effect. Therefore, the reinsurance premium may be higher than the expected reinsurance payout, allowing the government to build up reserves across time.

The reinsurance agreement between the insurance pool and the government is designed to give the insurance industry time to find external capital on the reinsurance market. Although it is not expected that international reinsurers will offer such an unlimited coverage, they may offer a layer of reinsurance, e.g., between 105% and 200% of premiums, and thus the government’s stop

> 6 The Government should behave as a risk neutral decision maker as long as the cost of risk bearing is insignificant because it can be spread among a large number of taxpayers (Arrow and Lind, 1970). In the case of livestock insurance in Mongolia, this assumption may not hold as the Mongolian economy and the government fiscal revenue are negatively impacted by _dzud_ events. However, during the pilot phase, excessive losses are financed by a World Bank contingent credit facility provided at a cost well below the market costs. This allows the Government to spread potential losses across time, thus reducing its aversion towards livestock mortality risk.

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loss would only cover the losses exceeding this layer. Reinsurance companies may also be interested to take a share of the losses under the stop loss, e.g., through of a quota share agreement with participating insurance companies. Figure 7 depicts the risk financing arrangements for the BIP losses.

**Figure 7. The financing of BIP losses under the LIIP**

<!-- Start of picture text --> Gvt Financed<br>Other Government<br>Resources From Gvt budget<br>and/or World Bank<br>contingent loan<br>Reinsurance<br>BIP Reserves premiums paid by<br>insurance companies<br>Herders’ insurance<br>Herders’ insurance premiums<br>premiums net of<br>LIIP Reserves reinsurance costs<br>(equal to 105 percent<br>of herder premiums)<br>Guarantee Indemnity<br>Contribution Fund Insurers’ capital at risk<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: Authors.

The LIIP is a unique syndicate pooling arrangement which has been designed to address the current constraints in the local insurance market in Mongolia: lack of capital of the domestic insurance industry, lack of access to the reinsurance market, weak regulatory and supervisory framework, and potential catastrophic livestock losses. It paves the way to the development of a more traditional pool where local insurers would build reserves over years to absorb moderate losses and transfer catastrophic losses to the reinsurance market to reduce the government’s fiscal exposure to livestock losses.

While the collective action problem of high transaction costs and lack of trust plague many attempts to develop a pooling arrangement, these problems are largely linked to the legitimate concerns that an individual insurance company may have about the way that other insurance companies underwrite their risk. In this situation, all insurance companies are underwriting the same insurance contracts and each company is collecting premiums from herders that are based on the same underwriting and loss adjustment procedures. Companies deposit the risk-loaded premiums into the LIIP. Thus, the uniformity of the contracts and the risk pricing should greatly reduce the transaction costs of agreeing to participate in a pooling arrangement. This is an extremely important aspect of pooling an index insurance contract versus attempting to pool traditional insurance products that will undoubtedly be more heterogeneous.

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# **_4.4. Government Fiscal Exposure_**

The Government of Mongolia is double exposed to livestock risk under this livestock insurance program. First, it covers losses exceeding a specific threshold (e.g., 25-30% of livestock mortality rate) through the DRP. Second, it acts as a reinsurer of last resort for the insurance companies selling the BIP through a stop loss reinsurance treaty sold at a fair price to the LIIP. This double exposure calls for adequate financing in order to avoid an increase in the fiscal burden of the government.<sup>7</sup> The proposed financing of the government’s potential losses relies on a combination of reserves and an World Bank contingent credit provided by the World Bank. The BIP reserve includes reinsurance premiums paid by participating insurers and eventually additional capital brought by the GoM. Once this reserve is depleted, the government will call the contingent credit facility. This facility can potentially provide the government with a lower cost capital relative to the accumulation of reserves, but the major disadvantage is that once disbursed this facility could exacerbate the debt burden of the country. The effectiveness of this facility would thus depend on the country’s post-disaster financial profile and more specifically on its post-disaster ability to service debt. A grace period of several years may allow the Government to recover an acceptable fiscal situation before starting to reimburse the contingent debt.

The disbursement of the contingent loan would follow the following process. If the actual BIP losses are in excess of the LIIP reserve and the BIP reinsurance reserve and/or if DRP payments have to be made, then the contingent loan will be drawn down to cover these excess BIP losses and/or the DRP losses.

# **5. Pilot Study**

Based on several technical criteria (e.g., geographical spread of risk, existing pastoral risk management programs), three _aimags_ were selected for the pilot phase of this program: Bayankhongor, Uvs and Khentii (see Figure 8). The risk profiles are summarized in Annex 1. The value at risk, i.e., the total value of animals exposed to natural disasters, is estimated at $55 million in Khentii, $43 million in Uvs and $33 million in Bayankhongor. The average annual loss, based on the losses over the last 33 years, is estimated at $3.2 million in Khentii, $1.5 million in Uvs and $1.9 million in Bayankhongor. Given the catastrophic risk profile of the mortality rates cased by the occurrence of _dzuds_ , the variability of the annual loss is high, particularly in Bayankhongor where the standard deviation is higher than the average. The average annual loss, in percentage of the value at risk, is estimated at 5.7 percent in Khentii, 4.7 percent in Uvs and 5.6 percent in Bayankhongor.

The historical morality rates are analyzed for the species at the _aimag_ level to determine the relationship between species. A simple linear correlation is conducted for all pairs of species within each of the three _aimags_ (see Table 4). They show positive correlations between the different species. Bankhongor has the most strongly correlated mortality rates. These coefficients of correlation are weaker in Khentii, particularly between sheep and cattle.

> 7 During the pilot phase, the Government may also have to provide ex post disaster relief in the area hit by a catastrophe and where livestock insurance is not offered.

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# **Figure 8. Selected areas for the IBLI pilot program.**

Source: Authors.

**Table 4. Aimag correlation of mortality rates**

|Aimag|Species|Cattle|Sheep|Horse|Goat|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Bayankhongor|Cattle|1.00||||
||Sheep|0.87|1.00|||
||Horse|0.92|0.83|1.00||
||Goat|0.92|0.94|0.87|1.00|
|Khentii|Cattle|1.00||||
||Sheep|0.35|1.00|||
||Horse|0.51|0.62|1.00||
||Goat|0.91|0.94|0.87|1.00|
|Uvs|Cattle|1.00||||
||Sheep|0.62|1.00|||
||Horse|0.86|0.66|1.00||
||Goat|0.72|0.90|0.76|1.00|

Source: Authors from AFSC (2004).

The size of the animal population varies greatly between species within a _soum._ Limited data make mortality rates less credible, i.e., the mortality rates and their variability can be questioned. A potential consequence would be to provide over-payments or under-payments, thus increasing the potential dissatisfaction with the BIP program, either on the part of the insured herders or the private insurance providers. The limited credibility fluctuation approach is performed to identify the minimum number of animals under which the data are not credible and thus cannot be safely used to base payments on (see Box 5). A threshold of 3,000 animal heads was selected. A proxy is used for the _soums_ having less than 3,000 animals of a specific species. Given this criterion, cattle are excluded in 17% of _soums_ and horses are excluded in 19% of _soums_ . This represents 21
only 6% of cattle and 11% of horses in all three _aimags_ . Sheep morality rates are used as the proxy to make BIP and DRP payments when cattle and horses fall below 3,000 in any _soum._

# **Box 5. Data credibility**

<mark>The limited fluctuation credibility approach assumes that the random mortality for a particular</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>-species follows a Poisson process in each year. We want to be sure that the observed mortality for a particular</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>-species-year,</mark> _<mark>M</mark>_ <mark>, is within</mark> _<mark>c</mark>_ <mark>% of the true expected mortality,</mark> _<mark>m</mark>_ <mark>, with probability (1-</mark> _<mark>a</mark>_ <mark>)%:</mark> Prob <mark>[</mark> 1( − _c_ ) _m_ ≤ _M_ ≤ 1( + _c_ ) _m_ <mark>]</mark> = 1 − _a_ .

<mark>Applying the central limit theorem, one can show that the expected mortality for</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>-species-</mark> year _m_ has to be greater than _Z a c_ 2 , where _Z a_ is the (a/2)th percentile of the normal <mark>distribution.</mark> <mark>The average mortality for</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>-species is 4.8% or above in 90% of</mark> _<mark>soums</mark>_ <mark>. We would like to be very sure (99% sure) that the mortality rate estimate is within 1 percentage point of the true value,</mark> 2 i.e., c=21% (=1%/0.048). Given a=1% and c=21%, we have _Z a c_ = 151. The minimum <mark>number of animals is thus 3,146=151/0.048, which is rounded at 3,000.</mark> <mark>The species in a</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>with less than 3,000 animals are considered to have low data and thus cannot be used to make indemnity payments because of their low credibility. This threshold excludes cattle in 17</mark> _<mark>soums</mark>_ <mark>and horses in 19</mark> _<mark>soums</mark>_ <mark>, out of 57</mark> _<mark>soums</mark>_ <mark>. This represents 6% of cattle and 11% and horses in all three selected</mark> _<mark>aimags</mark>_ <mark>. Source: Authors, from AFSC (2004).</mark> The premium rates of the BIP product are calculated for each of the 59 _soums_ in the three pilot _aimags_ and for each species (cattle, sheep, goats and horses). The steps in the ratemaking procedure are detailed in Box 6. The weighted average premium rates, and the minimum and maximum premiums rates, by _aimag_ and species, are listed in Table 5. Bayankhongor is the riskier _aimag_ in this mezzanine layer of risk, with average premium rates and the minimum and maximum rates higher than those in the other _aimags_ , for all four species.

# **Box 6. BIP ratemaking procedure**

<mark>The main steps in setting the premium rates for the BIP program are the following.</mark> <mark>First, the expected value of mortality rates exceeding 7% is computed for each</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>-species.</mark> <mark>Second, each</mark> _<mark>aimag</mark>_ <mark>is divided into 3 risk zones using a pure premium rate for the commingled species (i.e., the</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>of all deaths of all species divided by the</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>of all animals for all species).</mark> <mark>Third, the expected BIP payoff, i.e., mortality rates between 7% and 25%-30%, is computed for</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>-species and zone-species.</mark> <mark>Fourth, as a means of smoothing the premium rates out within a risk zone, the pure premium for a</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>-species is then defined as the simple average between the expected BIP payoff for the</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>-species and the expected BIP payoff for the zone-species, with the corresponding zone of the given</mark> _<mark>soum</mark>_ <mark>.</mark> <mark>Fifth, in order to account for the most extreme events in the region, a catastrophe load is added to the above pure premium. This catastrophe load is the simple average between the expected DRP payoff for the zone-species and the expected DRP payoff for the</mark> _<mark>aimag</mark>_ <mark>-species, with the</mark> 22
<mark>corresponding</mark> _<mark>aimag</mark>_ <mark>of a given zone. These values are simply added to the premium rates that come from step 4.</mark> <mark>Finally, the smoothed premium (equal to the pure premium from step 4 plus the catastrophe load) is weighted by a scale factor, determined at the</mark> _<mark>aimag</mark>_ <mark>level, such that the reinsurance premium rate is roughly identical in all three</mark> _<mark>aimags</mark>_ <mark>(about 38%). This last step aims to prevent participating insurance companies from targeting herders only located in the</mark> _<mark>aimag</mark>_ <mark>with the lowest reinsurance cost.</mark> <mark>Source: Authors.</mark>

**Table 5. BIP risk-loaded premium rates, weighted average by aimag**

||Goat|Horse|Sheep|Cattle|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Uvs|||||
|Average|1.05%|1.50%|0.83%|1.50%|
|Min|0.62%|0.50%|0.50%|0.68%|
|Max|1.86%|3.22%|1.98%|2.48%|
|Bayankhongor|||||
|Average|2.33%|2.24%|2.59%|2.46%|
|Min|1.64%|1.50%|1.84%|2.07%|
|Max|2.76%|2.88%|2.99%|3.57%|
|Khentii|||||
|Average|1.20%|0.94%|1.07%|1.69%|
|Min|0.85%|0.55%|0.76%|1.20%|
|Max|1.74%|1.96%|1.53%|2.18%|

Source: authors.

The livestock loss exposure of the participating insurance companies is estimated under the following assumptions. Four insurance companies sell the IBLI product in the three pilot _aimags_ and the total livestock insurance penetration rate is assumed to be 10 percent. Three of them are concentrated in each of the three pilot _aimags_ , with a penetration rate of 4 percent in each _soum_ and each species. The fourth insurance company dominates the market and has a diversified portfolio with a penetration rate of 6 percent in the three _aimags_ for all species. This roughly replicates the current insurance market shares in Mongolia.

# _Herders_

Under such assumptions, historical data show that the probability of getting BIP payments in any given year is equal to 94% in Bayankhongor, 85% in Khentii and 70% in Uvs. The probability of receiving BIP payments higher than 10% of the risk-loaded premium is estimated at 61% in Bahnakhongor, 42% in Khentii and 27% in Uvs. Thus, there is a significant chance that some herders will get paid within the first year of implementation; such early payments would contribute to the credibility of the insurance program.

Herders subscribing only the DRP program have a lower probability of receiving any payments, as this program covers only extreme losses. The probability that DRP payments will be made in the pilot _aimags_ in any given year is estimated at 30%.

# _Insurance industry_

Under the assumption of 10% signup rates for BIP, the total premium volume (excluding operating costs) would be around $215,000. Since the reinsurance stop loss is 105 of total premium in the first year of implementation, the LIIP reserve would be about $276,000. The 23
reinsurance premium rate is equal to 40% for the non-diversified portfolio, i.e., companies A, B and C, and 32% for the diversified portfolio of company D. The diversification effect thus allows company D to reduce the cost of reinsurance by 8 percentage points. This gives a strong incentive to participating insurers to bring a diversified portfolio of business to the pool.<sup>8</sup> Total reinsurance costs for the stop loss at 105 percent would be close to $50,000 (see Annex 2).

The average annual BIP loss paid by the LIIP is estimated at $133,000. The LIIP reserve would be fully depleted in about once every seven years (15%). The return on capital (ROC), including interest earnings at 13%, of the participating insurance companies would be high to reward the high risk exposure. The average ROC would be equal to 72-73% for the non-diversified companies and 119% for the diversified company. The insurance companies would lose their initial contribution about once every 4 years (24%).<sup>9</sup> Non-diversified companies would have a 58% chance of making 100% profit or more. This goes up to 62% for the diversified company (see Annex 2).

# _Government_

The Government plays a key role in the proposed index-based livestock insurance program. First, it retains catastrophic livestock losses for all DRP signup when the mortality rates exceed a predefined threshold (25% mortality rate in Khentii and 30% mortality rate for Uvs and Bahnakhongor). This social device protects herders against extreme losses. Second, it acts as a reinsurer of last resort, providing an actuarially fair stop loss to the insurance pool when the LIIP reserves are exhausted.

The BIP reinsurance reserve (equal to the reinsurance premium volume) would be about $50,000. As long as no large livestock losses occur, a BIP reinsurance reserve will be built up over time, increasing the financial capacity of the government to absorb large livestock losses. However, there would be a 20% chance that this reserve is not sufficient to cover all BIP reinsurance indemnities the first year of implementation (see Annex 3).

The special account, set up to fund the World Bank contingent credit facility, would be used to finance BIP losses in excess of the BIP reinsurance reserve and any DRP payments that the GoM is not able to finance through budget reallocation. Under these assumptions, the special account would be used about once every 4 years (28%). There would be a 16% chance that the payments from this account exceed US$0.5 million, a 8% chance that the payments exceed US$1 million and a 2% chance that payments are higher than US$2 million (see Annex 3).

For this pilot and the assumptions regarding participation, the occurrence of three consecutive _dzuds_ as those observed in 2000, 2001 and 2002 would cost to the government about $3.8 million (see Annex 3). Given such estimates, the US$5 million contingent credit should be sufficient for financing losses from both the BIP and the DRP during the three year life of the pilot.

# **6. Implementing and Operating the Pilot Project: Challenges**

As this project is innovative and untested, there are potential problems that have influenced the design of the pilot. The special structure to ring-fence other lines of insurance from BIP losses and to finance extreme losses have been addressed. Other concerns include statistics used to measure livestock mortality, basis risk for individual herders, lack of education and knowledge about index insurance among herders, and the potential for fraud in the countryside.

> 8 However, the optimal strategy will be based on the tradeoff between the costs of setting up a delivery network in the aimags and the diversification gains.

> 9 Even in those years, they will still make interest earnings on both their initial contribution and the herders’ premium fraction that remains in the LIIP.

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# **_6.1. Statistics Used to Measure Livestock Mortality_**

The GoM has been conducting an annual census of animals in Mongolia for well over 50 years. The procedures are well-established and have numerous laws that attempt to protect the integrity of the process. Nonetheless, there are potential problems with these data once an insurance product is developed to pay based on the mortality rates. Considerable effort was made to understand the data process during the development of the pilot. It was learned that approximately 90 percent of the losses occur while herders are in their winter camps. Even though herders move their animals and can cross _soum_ boundaries, it was also learned that where they have their winter camp is the designated _soum_ in the census. Herders typically have a pattern of keeping their animals in the same camps by season. Local government leaders know the families and know their animals. These experts are used to assist in counting and reporting problems. New systems to track the same families will be developed at the National Statistics Office (NSO).

To assure a timely payment, a new animal census will be conducted during the pilot stage during the month of May. Mortality rates of adult animals will be based on the Census at the end of December and the May Census. There are very few animals slaughtered during this period. Thus, this statistic should reflect actual mortality better than numbers that would extend into the heavy slaughtering periods. During the pilot, the traditional methods of reporting mortality and a sample survey will be used to monitor any emerging problems. Additionally, a special technical assistance program is to be provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Statistics Service. This assistance will be targeted at a lower cost and more accurate procedure that will use sample survey techniques. At the end of the pilot, an evaluation will be made about the sustainability and reliability of alternative methods for estimating mortality rates.

# **_6.2. Basis Risk for Individual Herders_**

Basis risk will be an issue for some herders. Undoubtedly some herders will have losses when the mortality rate does not trigger a payment. To the extent that these losses are not severe when the insured herder does not get a payment or receives too little payment from the BIP or the DRP, the concept of self-retention is still important. However, there are potential problems if there are large losses. Other risk coping mechanisms need to be enhanced. Given that index insurance should take the major risk out of the system, it can also allow groups of herders to share risk in more creative ways. The project will attempt to link the index insurance to microfinance and to herder self-help groups that could facilitate informal risk sharing mechanisms within the group.

A relatively straightforward examination of the data confirms that the spatial relationships among contiguous _soums_ are relatively high. The three worst years in recent history, 2000, 2001 and 2002 for three _aimags_ , Khentii, Bayankhongor, and Uvs were examined to make this determination. The average mortality rate for each species for each _aimag_ was calculated from the _soum_ mortality rates for a given year. Then the deviation from the mean was calculated for each _soum_ as follows: Deviation by _soum_ = ( _Soum_ mortality rate - average _aimag_ mortality rate) Positive values indicate above average mortality rates for that _soum_ , while negative values indicate below average mortality rates. These values were then mapped to get a visual representation of the geographic distribution of livestock deaths by species and _soum_ . While there will be always be variation at the local level, the images indicate that the severity of the disaster is graduated, meaning the highest mortality rates are concentrated in several _soums_ and decrease as you move further from that area. Though the index will be based on _soum_ -level losses, the graduation of losses across _soums_ indicates an event where there are correlated losses. This also is likely to be true within the _soum_ . The higher the correlation of losses across an area, the more the 25
to mitigate these problems. Sales agents must undergo training and become certified before being approved to sell BIP. Once certified, agents will be issued a perforating stamp with a unique identification number and a set of numbered sales sheets. For each transaction multiple sales sheets will be perforated with the unique identification stamp. Redundant systems are in place to validate the sales. Herders will also have the opportunity to validate the sales at the local government level in the fall well before any losses occur. All of these systems have been organized to minimize the likelihood that any herder will present a sales sheet at the time of the loss and discover that they are not entered into the record in a proper fashion. Insurance companies have every incentive to maintain the integrity of the system as they will be responsible for any herder losses that occur outside the documented record of sales. Such exposure would also be outside the LIIP and the GoM stop loss system. In addition to the detail for the individual sales, redundant systems will be created in tracking all sales and paying all losses. The LIIP itself assures that herder premiums are completely protected until time of settlement.

# **7. Experience to Date**

The first sales season took place from April 1 to July 10, 2006, with insurance policies protecting against losses in the first five months of 2007. Three insurance companies were involved in the sales with 142 certified insurance agents operating in all 56 _soums_ . Sales were greater than expected in numbers with around 9 percent of herders purchasing the BIP in the three pilot regions. The total premium volume (excluding administrative costs) exceeded US$78,000. Just over 2,200 herders purchased the commercial BIP product and 200 herders enrolled in only the social DRP product. Nearly 300,000 animals were insured under the project, which represents about 7 percent of the animals in the three pilot regions. Herders with herd size smaller than average were the primary purchasers of the IBLI insurance products.

Most herders purchased the lowest level of coverage (30 percent of the value of their animals). In the second year of pilot implementation, herders will be able to select either a 6 percent or a 10 percent mortality threshold for the BIP. The educational efforts are trying to encourage the herders to consider the 10 percent threshold with a higher value of insurance as a better risk management strategy to protect against the most severe losses.

Participating insurance companies were allowed to charge an operating load beyond the riskloaded premiums. These loads averaged around 25 percent of the risk-loaded premiums. Insurance companies indicated that these loads may be raised in the second year.

However, as expected, the first sales season of the pilot program revealed some areas where adjustments were needed. In addition, herders and participating insurance companies brought forth concerns and recommendations for the pilot program. The types of issues raised highlight the need for very thorough and clear education of stakeholders. Misunderstandings and confusion about the IBLI program can lead to its demise. Herders must have a clear understanding about the terms and conditions of the BIP and DRP contracts. Insurance companies must have confidence in the calculation of indemnities. Transparency of information is an important aspect of this. Likewise, insurance agents and local staff must have a solid understanding of the program to convey the details to the herders and to ensure that the program operates the way it is designed.

The case for linking index insurance to lending was made to lenders in Mongolia (Skees and Barnett 2006). As a result, the three major lenders agreed to lower interest rates for herders purchasing the BIP insurance. In some cases, they are also willing to lend more to herders who have BIP insurance. On average the rates were lowered by 1.2 percentage points annually. Furthermore, herders who have the BIP insurance can obtain these preferential interest rates 27
anytime during the period they are insured by BIP. Additionally, it is anticipated that access to credit will improve given this form of insurance.

An extensive educational and promotion effort was undertaken in the first year of the project. Face-to-face education took place with 95 percent of the herders (over 27,000 herders). Although the face-to-face education made a significant contribution to the herders understanding of the IBLI product, some confusion on the understanding of the ‘losses’ to be covered under the IBLI scheme remained. As part of the monitoring and evaluation of the project, some 670 people were interviewed in focus group discussions. Over 85 percent of the herders indicated that they had received IBLI information. Of the herders interviewed, about 15 percent had purchased the BIP. Over half of these herders like the idea that they would be paid during the difficult _dzud_ event even without proving they had any losses.

Despite the significant educational efforts which included some strong information about the careful considerations to assure payments, a number of herders continued to be influenced by the past negative experience where livestock insurance did not pay for losses during the most difficult times. These views appear to have influenced the purchase decision. It is likely that these views would change if there are some losses paid during the pilot project.

# **8. Conclusion**

Government of Mongolia requested specific assistance from the World Bank in coping with extreme livestock losses. This paper gives the background and details for a pilot program that will test index-based livestock insurance. A credit of US$9.44 million was approved in May 2005. This loan includes both technical assistance to run a three year pilot program in three _aimags_ in Mongolia and a US$5 million contingent debt facility to serve as a mechanism for protecting the government against extreme losses during the pilot. The proposed pilot involves three distinct layers of risk: self retention by the herders for low livestock mortality rates; commercial base insurance product for intermediate livestock mortality rates; and safety-net disaster response product for high livestock mortality rates, i.e., beyond the layer covered by the BIP.

An index-based insurance program was recommended because of significant concerns about moral hazard, adverse selection, and extreme monitoring costs associated with any individual livestock insurance program in the vast open spaces of Mongolia. While it is believed that the index-insurance product can be effectively underwritten, significant financial exposure for a nascent insurance market that has extremely limited access to global risk shifting markets remains among the largest challenges. Given concerns about financing extreme losses, the pilot design involves a syndicate pooling arrangement for insurance companies. This pool ring fences this line of business and thus protects the domestic insurance market against any catastrophic livestock losses. The government offers an unlimited stop loss on the pooled risk of the insurance companies.

In the syndicated pooling arrangement, participants share underwriting gains and losses based upon the share of herder premium they bring into the pool. Each insurer also pays reinsurance costs that are consistent with the book of business they bring into the pool. This gives the reinsurance pool the benefits of the pooling arrangement and provides the opportunity to build reserves for the overall program. The BIP reinsurance reserves pay for the first layer of losses beyond the stop loss. Once the BIP reinsurance reserves are exhausted, the government can call upon the contingent credit to pay for any remaining losses.

A major advantage of having a prepaid indemnity pool is that all other lines of insurance business are protected from the extreme losses that can occur from writing an agricultural risk that is 28
highly correlated. In addition, the pooling mechanism allows participating companies to spread their risk among all insurers involved in the sale of the BIP product. Given that BIP is a standard product that involves the same premium rates from all companies, the issue of trust and due diligence of the underwriting skills of participating insurers is greatly reduced. This is important as typical pooling arrangements among insurance companies are generally very difficult to organize given the high transaction costs needed to perform due-diligence on underwriting skills of the participating insurers. The longer term vision is that the pooling mechanism created in the pilot can be well positioned to find risk-sharing partners in the global community quickly as the pooling arrangement is both risky and profitable. Reinsurers might be willing to provide capital and enter quota-share arrangements on that risk. To the extent that the risks within the pool are standardized, using the same measures and procedures, one can also envision this mechanism serving as a means to securitize the risk. Finally, the design also offers the opportunity to transition the system to the market once it is learned whether herders find the BIP an acceptable product and demonstrate a willingness to pay.

This lending operation, which offers the opportunity to design and implement a country-wide agriculture insurance program, paves the way to the development of financially sustainable agriculture insurance programs offering affordable and effective insurance coverage while limiting the fiscal exposure of the government.

As of May 2006, the pilot program was moving forward with three insurance companies approved for sales. The sales season started late April and was to end early July. The design of the program is being effectively implemented. Companies were required to submit a strategic plan using specially developed portfolio software. This allowed the companies to evaluate the tradeoffs between their administrative cost and the cost of reinsurance. Administrative cost increase as companies attempt to expand their reach into the entire market. Reinsurance cost decline as companies spread their risk over the market. Companies made rational choices. In the initial plans some 90 percent of the market is covered. A few _soums_ were excluded from company plans. In particular, some large _soums_ with a low number of animals were excluded. A challenge from the government steering committee was that there should be universal coverage of the product. Here again, the presence of two products, the market-based BIP product and the social-based DRP product, provided some counterbalance to the argument that companies should be selling index-based livestock insurance everywhere. An extensive promotion and public awareness campaign is being planned. At this stage, it is uncertain how herders will respond to these new insurance products. Two banks are offering lower interest rates and/or longer loan terms for herders purchasing the BIP product.

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