1 SYNERGY BETWEEN MICROINSURANCE

The aim of this work is to discuss the probable synergy between microcredit and micro-insurance. The analysis started from the present definition of microcredit and the characteristics of its offer in the Brazilian market, chiefly by describing the main players and the business mod-els in use. The main database about the informal economy was explored in order to analyze the main characteristics of the potential market of microcredit and microinsurance. The innovations of the microfinances in Brazil, considering the offer of microcredit as well as other financial ser-vices, can be useful to the synergy between microcredit and microinsurance. The idea that there is no microcredit in Brazil is false. Though there are few banks op-erating in the productive microcredit, and the unexplored potential market is large, the rates of growth, not only in volume but also in active clients, are quite high in comparison with other credit segments, even in the pre-crisis period when most traditional credit segments were grow-ing at high rates. Microcredit in Brazil and around the world is characterized by the creation of inno-vative ways of conceding credit. Among these innovations, one should detach the mechanism of group loans and the role of the credit agent. The first diminishes the risk represented by th