IUMI decided during the IUMI Cape Town conference in September 2018 on a new membership category in addition to the “Ordinary Membership”, the so called “Associate Membership”. Based on the new article 5a of IUMI’s Articles of Association, applicants can become temporary Associate Members for up to a maximum of three years. In this period Associate Members have to decide whether to become an Ordinary IUMI Member or to leave. The new Associate Membership has limited membership rights, and accordingly the membership fee for Associate Members is lower compared with Ordinary Membership.

Associate Members benefit from full information rights such as access to the password protected areas of the IUMI website and database, access to the conferences and events as well as access to the IUMI education programme. However, Associate Members are not able to vote with the IUMI Council or join the IUMI Technical Committees and Executive Committee. This membership is intended to help Associate Members obtain an excellent insight into IUMI and IUMI’s work in order to then decide their next steps on membership on a more educated level.

This new membership category will assist IUMI in gaining new member associations, particularly in regions from IUMI’s development strategy such as South-East Asia, Middle East, Latin-America and Africa. Decisions on applications for Associate Membership are made by the IUMI Executive Committee and not – as for Ordinary Members – by the IUMI Council. This makes the instrument more flexible and enables Associate Members to join at any time.

In October 2018, based on the decision taken by the IUMI Council, the IUMI Executive Committee approved the first application for Associate Membership put forward by the newly founded Myanmar Insurance Association MIA. IUMI welcomes MIA and will do its utmost to make the MIA Associate Membership a success.