Life insurance shows 34% growth Uganda in 2016

April 10, 2017 in Finance, Financial Services, Markets by Editor

April  10–The Life insurance business in Uganda registered a 34% annual growth rate during 2016, the insurance sector’s umbrella organization has disclosed.

Miriam Magala, the Chief Executive Officer, of the Uganda Insurance Association (UIA) said,“The life insurance category has one of the healthiest growths among all the other insurance categories.  This means that insurers are responding to the needs of the market with value driven products.”

Magala was speaking at the recent Life Agent of the Year awards in Kampala. She said 34% annually speaks to a continuing need and opportunity for insurance firms.

Edgar Katsigwa won the Agent of the Year 2016 Award; Michael Kukawon the Best New Life Insurance Agent 2016 Award and Ronald Keeya Senabulya emerged the Best Agent in the Persistency category. Katsigwa was also recognized as the agent who brought in the highest premiums.

 

Last month, the UIA launched a 10 year Market Growth and Development Plan. This streamlines a series of actions and activities under four key intervention areas, including increased understanding and appreciation of insurance, lobbying and advocacy, leveraging on technology and capacity building with the aim of increasing the insurance penetration from less than 1% today to 3% by 2025.

The Chairman of the Life and Pensions Committee, Joseph Almeida said Life insurance is a growth area for UIA especially as the association is advocating for the government to introduce incentives for the public to boost their savings.

Almeida said this will not only encourage the uptake of life insurance, but will also ensure that people can continue to afford the same standard of living and provide for their loved ones, even when they do not have steady incomes.

Established in 2011, the Life Agent of the Year awards are in recognition of the contributions that agents make towards growing the insurance industry in Uganda. Since their inception, the awards have progressively led to an improvement in the quality of individual life insurance business in Uganda.

The awards are open to all life insurance member companies and are given in the following categories; New business written in terms of policies and premiums: Best New Agent, Percentage of Policies that are still in force (also known as Persistency).

UIA currently has 31 member companies of which nine are Life Insurance companies, 20 are Non-Life General Insurance companies and two Reinsurance companies. The Life and General insurance companies have an extensive countrywide branch network.