Health insurance and other risk-coping strategies in Uganda: the case of Microcare Insurance Ltd

To reduce the burden of health expenditures in developing countries, health-insurance schemes have become popular and now feature prominently in poverty-reduction strategies. There is, however, limited empirical evidence on the effect of such schemes on the livelihoods of clients, especially regarding household strategies to finance medical expenditures. This paper explores the relationship between health insurance and other risk-coping strategies used to finance medical expenditures in Uganda. Insurance is associated with a lower frequency of asset sales but not with lower incidences of borrowing. The amount of money borrowed or generated through the sales of assets is lower for insured households.