As part of the efforts to enhance service delivery in the insurance industry, the Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda has challenged insurance players to embrace technology as a way of addressing some of the existing challenges that have resulted into the slow uptake of insurance services.
According to Alhaj Kaddunabbi Ibrahim Lubega, the Authority’s CEO, insurance companies should invest in products that are facilitated by Technology to speak to the needs of the insuring public as they respond to the existing challenges. To him, this will increase insurance uptake as many people will be reached at reasonable costs and convenience.
“Without using innovation, we cannot survive and without using data, we cannot design products that meet the needs of our people. We need to look at innovation as a critical part of our organizations and change the way we do things to survive longer”, Kaddunabbi said.
He was speaking at the Insurance CEOs breakfast meeting which brought together CEOs from different insurance companies to deliberate on the potential of InsurTechs in deepening and widening the insurance sector in Uganda.
In her presentation, Evelyn Atim Magomu from the Innovation Village emphasized the need for insurance players to move away from the traditional way of doing things by embracing innovations that are designed to address challenges of the modern potential insurance customer.
“Technology is what is going to take insurance to the next level. The challenge now is that innovators have not had good audience with insurance companies to showcase their products”, Atim said adding that there are so many technology platforms and the insurance industry should tap into them to reach out to many people who will in turn buy the available insurance products.
It is here that the IRA Uganda CEO confirmed the Authority’s commitment to supporting innovations that are responsive to the challenges in the sector.
“We are in the process of developing regulations that will guide these innovations and are now in the discussion stage. What is most important however is that innovators should know that they have full support of the Authority”.
The insurance industry has continued to come up with products that aim at addressing the needs of people but the bigger majority of the population still remains underserved while others are not served at all. By embracing InsurTech, there is a likelihood that more people will get to know about the existing insurance products which address their needs and as a result, buy them.
