The aim of most index-based insurance programs is to act as a social security mechanism
and to provide defense against social and financial exclusion for people whose existing
coping strategies are failing. For such schemes, insurance payouts do not depend on the
individual losses but on an index which serves as a proxy for the losses. As proposed in this
paper, also remote sensing data can be used for index-based insurance which gives
additional advantages in comparison to traditional on-ground based indexed instruments.
Furthermore, distinguishing between a promotion as well as protection level within such
schemes is beneficial from a supply as well as demand side perspective and we suggest
an approach how both can be simultaneously introduced within a remote sensing index
based insurance framework. The applicability and usefulness of the approach is tested
for smallhold farmers in North Shewa, Ethiopia. It is found that the use of remote sensing
data is indeed a possible alternative to traditional weather based micro-insurance schemes
which offers new ways to tackle current problems of such schemes from a supply side as
well as demand side perspective.