Insurance companies paid out shs618 billion in claims in the year ended 2022, the Insurance Regulatory Authority has said.
A claim is a formal request to your insurance provider for reimbursement against losses covered under your insurance policy.
Speaking during the release of the sector performance report, the IRA CEO, Ibrahim Kaddunabbi Lubega said the shs618 billion represented an 8.2% increase from the sector’s performance in the year 2021.
“The sector players have continued to demonstrate great improvements in the quality of service related to payment of legitimate claims. Gross claims paid on account of both life and non-life (including HMOs) increased by 8.2% from shs564.8billion in 2021 to shs 618.7billion,” Kaddunabbi said on Wednesday.
Commenting about the development, Sande Protazio, the director of planning, research and market development at the Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda (IRA) said this shows enhanced commitment by players to honour their obligations which also helps instill more confidence in members of the public in regards the sector.
According to the sector performing report for the year 2022, a total of 2.4 million Ugandans were covered by insurance including both individual and corporate covers).
This figure shows that the insurance uptake in the country is now at 5.4% of the total population of 45.5 million according to UBOS data.
In terms of insurance penetration, it improved slightly by 0.08% from 0.796% in 2021 to 0.876% in 2022.
“The penetration continues to be depressed by the spread effect of double rebasing of the National GDP over the last 10 years (2014, and 2019),” IRA CEO, Ibrahim Kaddunabbi said.
On the other hand, insurance density, which is a measure of the extent of insurance deepening increased from shs 28,059 to shs 31,315 representing a 11.6% growth over the year.
In terms of agriculture insurance, in the year 2022, a total of 316,496 farmers were covered and generated shs11.4billion in gross written premiums to the industry for the insured sum of shs372.2billion.
This brings the cumulative number of farmers to 665,240, and cumulative sum insured of shs 2.3trillion.
On the other hand, a total of shs 8.75billion was paid in claims on the account of losses suffered.
Cumulatively, a total of shs 32.6billion was paid in claims over the scheme period.