Organization: Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)
Country: Tanzania
City: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Office: IPA in Dar es Salaam
Research Associate, Intra-household Bargaining
Innovations for Poverty Action seeks a Research Associate to manage a project that will answer questions related to take up, selection, and use/satisfaction of mobile insurance, across different enrollment methods (solicitation vs no solicitation), different controlled audio messages at the point of sale (disclosure, behavioral marketing), and different follow-up scenarios. The project is led by Michael King (University of Trinity Dublin) and Paolina del Carmen Medina Palma (Texas A&M University).
Development and roll-out of mobile insurance in developing countries has only begun recently. Insurance regulators do not yet have a clear understanding of the associated consumer protection implications and have not yet developed evidence based regulatory guidelines for interactions with customers. We expect this research to provide evidence on the efficacy of aggressive telemarketing and provide guidance on the effectiveness of disclosure solutions.
On the assumption that our disclosure interventions are effective, the findings will empower regulators to pursue interventionist policies to ensure customers are better informed about terms and conditions and claims processes. This research project studies the effect of regulatory disclosures and behaviorally informed advertising strategies on take-up, renewal and claims for mobile hospitalization insurance provided by a large mobile network operator (MNO) and insurance provider in Tanzania. We use consumer protection motivated pre-recorded messages played during phone call solicitations, cross-randomized with informative follow text messages, to study changes in composition of the insured pool, and changes in user behavior.
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