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This research aims to explore the significance of cooperative efforts in promoting financial participation to enhance the socio-economic empowerment of the rural Muslims.

The primary study with a structured questionnaire has been conducted taking a sample of 398 rural Muslim respondents from various rural regions of south India through proportionate stratified sampling techniques. Regression analysis, paired sample t-test and structural equation modelling (SEM) through statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) 26 & SPSS analysis of moment structures (AMOS) 23 software have been implemented to test the relationship.

The research outcome demonstrated a remarkable difference in the rural Muslim’s socio-economic conditions before and after availing the loans from cooperatives. Consequently, an extension of cooperative efforts widens the scope of financial participation which again has positively enhanced rural Muslim’s socio-economic empowerment.

This study will help various policymakers, academicians and communities to take necessary action for the upliftment of a particular community. The research further adds on to the existing research on the need and importance of cooperative efforts as an alternative finance for marginalised community in developing and emerging countries.

The result of this study is only confined to south India, posing a limitation for the study. Apart from the geographical restriction, the study solemnly covers the rural Muslim community extracting other sections of the society. Hence, for more generalisable pictures of the current results, further research is recommended from other stakeholders’ perspectives.

This paper investigates why bancassurance coexists with alternative insurance distribution channels in the long run, considering the bank channel is known to involve lower costs than traditional distribution systems. It tests the product-quality hypothesis that maintains that the higher costs of some distribution systems represent expenses associated with producing higher product quality, greater service intensity and/or skills to solve principal-agent conflicts.

An analysis is conducted on firms operating in the life segment of the Spanish insurance industry over an eight-year sample period. First, the author estimates cost efficiency and profit inefficiency using data envelopment analysis. Cost efficiency enables one to evaluate if the use of the banking channel increases cost efficiency. Profit inefficiency is addressed to identify the existence/absence of product-quality differences. The performance implications of using bancassurance are analyzed by applying Heckman's two-stage random-effects regression model.

The results support the product-quality arguments. The use of banking channel was found to increase cost efficiency. However, the distribution channel/s utilized did not affect profit inefficiency.

A regulatory environment that supports the development of bancassurance enables this and alternative distribution channels to be sorted into market niches, where each system enjoys comparative advantages in order to minimize insurer costs and maximize insurer revenues. There is no single optimal insurance distribution system.

This is the first study to investigate why bancassurance coexists with alternative insurance distribution channels.

A range of strategies to improve pharmaceutical care has been implemented by population health management (PHM) initiatives. However, which strategies generate the desired outcomes is largely unknown. The purpose of this paper is to identify guiding principles underlying collaborative strategies to improve pharmaceutical care and the contextual factors and mechanisms through which these principles operate.

The evaluation was informed by a realist methodology examining the links between PHM strategies, their outcomes and the contexts and mechanisms by which these strategies operate. Guiding principles were identified by grouping context-specific strategies with specific outcomes.

In total, ten guiding principles were identified: create agreement and commitment based on a long-term vision; foster cooperation and representation at the board level; use layered governance structures; create awareness at all levels; enable interpersonal links at all levels; create learning environments; organize shared responsibility; adjust financial strategies to market contexts; organize mutual gains; and align regional agreements with national policies and regulations. Contextual factors such as shared savings influenced the effectiveness of the guiding principles. Mechanisms by which these guiding principles operate were, for instance, fostering trust and creating a shared sense of the problem.

The guiding principles highlight how collaboration can be stimulated to improve pharmaceutical care while taking into account local constraints and possibilities. The interdependency of these principles necessitates effectuating them together in order to realize the best possible improvements and outcomes.

This is the first study using a realist approach to understand the guiding principles underlying collaboration to improve pharmaceutical care.

From 1979 to 2023, the takaful structure has been adopted in many jurisdictions, making the documenting of its early days of establishment relatively difficult and somewhat unreliable. This is unlike conventional insurance, where the history and legislation are well documented and archived in various research (Hellwege, 2016; Marano and Siri, 2017). The purpose of this paper is to provide a chronology for the establishment and development of takaful via the takaful establishment in each jurisdiction, documenting its first takaful operator and first takaful regulation.

This paper has used a qualitative method in the form of reviewing literature and available data such as journals, books and official resources. The data is thoroughly analysed in order to build the chronology for takaful. It adopted an exploratory research design, which is deemed suitable in situations where few works of literature have examined the subject (Neuman, 2014). The paper explores the establishment and non-establishment of takaful in 57 countries. The paper categorises the countries into seven regions starting with the GCC, Levant, Asia, Central Asia, Africa, Europe and Others.

The takaful chronology presented in this paper shows that takaful operations exist in 47 jurisdictions, starting from Sudan and the UAE in 1979, with the most recent adopters being Morocco and Iran in December 2021. It is found that 22 jurisdictions do not have takaful regulations, and the Takaful Act 1984, issued in Malaysia, is considered the first takaful regulation that sets the basis for other regulations that follow.

The paper contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive chronology of takaful, especially as the few existing timelines have been found to be incomplete and consist of contradictory information.

This study explored health insurance coverage of genetic testing and potential factors associated with precision medicine (PM) reimbursement in Thailand.

The study employed a targeted review method. Thirteen PMs were selected to represent four PM categories: targeted cancer therapy candidate, prediction of adverse drug reactions (ADRs), dose adjustment and cancer risk prediction. Content analysis was performed to compare access to PMs among three health insurance schemes in Thailand. The primary outcome of the study was evaluating PM test reimbursement status. Secondary outcomes included clinical practice guidelines, PMs statement in FDA-approved leaflet and economic evaluation.

Civil Servant Medical Benefits Scheme (CSMBS) provided more generous access to PM than Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS) and Social Security Scheme (SSS). Evidence of economic evaluations likely impacted the reimbursement decisions of SSS and UCS, while the information provided in FDA-approved leaflets seemed to impact the reimbursement decisions of CSMBS. Three health insurance schemes provided adequate access to PM tests for some cancer-targeted therapies, while gaps existed for access to PM tests for serious ADRs prevention, dose adjustment and cancer risk prediction.

This was the first study to explore the situation of access to PMs in Thailand. The evidence alerts public health insurance schemes to reconsider access to PMs. Development of health technology assessment guidelines for PM test reimbursement decisions should be prioritized.

This paper aims to present the case of an Italian SME in the domain of insurance and how it approached its own digital transformation. Together with the founders of the SME, the author investigated the digital trends the company should adopt and identified where to intervene in the value chain of the company with new technologies available in the market. The research was focused on the following three sub-domains: a strategy for adoption of innovative digital solutions to improve the everyday operations of the company, platform connecting the company with the customers and analysis of cyber insurance policies to include in the portfolio of the company.

For the part on strategy for adoption of innovative digital solutions, the author performed literature review; for the part in which the study ideates new solution to better connect the company with the customers, the author relied on design thinking, creative facilitation and prototyping; and for the part on cyber insurance policies to include the portfolio, the author relied on data available from other insurance companies the SME collaborates with.

This paper presented the analysis on how an insurance SME can embrace digital innovation (via internal innovation, buying from startups, partnering with startups or investing in startups), how an SME can do internal innovation and come up with a simple tool to bring closer the insurers and their customers and types of new cyber risk policies to include in the portfolio to respond to the growing demand for cyber risk insurance. This paper provides useful insights and lessons learned from companies of similar size in the domain of insurance and discusses future extensions of inquiry.

Big insurance companies and incumbent for their digitization efforts rely on the freshly created InsurTechs wave of companies. In this paper, the author analyzes what small- and medium-sized insurance enterprises can do in this respect and showcases the approach an Italian SME took in this direction.