The MIA focuses its practice and methods on the principle of subsidiarity, the idea that management of community activities, i.e. community-based microinsurance schemes, should be kept within the community, as much as possible. With this as our guiding principle, we design our interventions to educate and mobilize communities to lead the way in the creation of health insurance suited to their needs.

When it comes to working with poor communities, the general strategy of the MIA consists of the following complementary activities:

Knowledge and Training:

We use innovative, interactive, and practical training modules that provide communities with the necessary knowledge and skills to create and govern their own micro health insurance units. The MIA conducts field-testing in the design of training modules, to ensure that they are applicable to the educational level of MIU members. We provide several different training modules, each geared towards a different role in the MIU creation and governance process.

Tools for Self-management:

We design practical tools that can be used by poor communities to manage microinsurance schemes. These include: information systems, simulation workshops to design benefit-packages, role-play for claims committees and Ombudsman roles, and procedures that can be used with baseline and impact analysis studies.

Network Training Institutes:

We aim to create a network of training institutes through a method we call “social franchising”. This approach is useful for accelerating and scaling up of knowledge transfer, while managing issues of linguistic and cultural diversity across the diverse geographical regions of India at a minimal cost.

Collaboration with State and National Governments:

We collaborate with both Central and State Governments by recommending policy level interventions in the space of healthcare. We make these recommendations based on the experiences and evidences gleaned from various government-led initiatives and through participation in such briefings.