Technology set to cause job loses but improve efficiency says Africa Reinsurance

The use of technology will help lower expenditure and increase market share in the country. [Photo: Courtesy]

Pan-African reinsurer which is based in Lagos, Nigeria on Tuesday urged Insurers to adopt the use of technology to help lower expenditure and increase market share in the country. The firm however believes that the move will have huge impact to employees in these companies.

African Reinsurance corporation (Africa Re) through its managing director Corneille Karekezi said embracing technology in insurance industries will benefit both the client and the companies.

Karekezi held, “technology must be embraced, because we have tried over the last 50 years to multiply the number of sales agents, branches and staff, and we are yet to achieve our desired goals.’’

Speaking in Nairobi at a firm’s leaders and stakeholders summit, Karekezi said that technology is more appropriate in responding to hard questions by clients. He believes, “training people to respond to questions, identify the needs of clients and explain to them appropriately requires huge investments and currently this is not cost-effective to many insurers.” Adding that, “a software or application can explain better than a person and respond to all queries within a short time.”

The insurer thought that the adoption of technology will lower fraud and delayed claim clearance since its faster and efficient.

Data from Swiss Re Sigma report shows South Africa has the highest penetration rate of 13.76 percent followed by Nigeria with a rate of 0.25 percent. In

Insurance Regulatory Authority-IRA data report shows that penetration rate reduced from 2.71 percent to 2.68 percent in 2016 and 2017 respectively. In 2016 the insurance penetration was 2.75 percent compared with 2.78 percent in 2015.

Total written premiums as a percentage segment of a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) are on a low pace because of lack of trust, ignorance, fraud and increased cost of premium a situation that is making it hard for insurance companies to penetrate into the economy.

Some insurance companies have embraced technology through the use of biometric identification cards, mobile application softwares and artificial intelligence (AI) in offering services to their clients electronically.

Consumer Insight through a report dubbed Wakenya indicated that 25 percent of adults had insurance covers.

Africa Re was founded in 1976 with an aim of reducing outflow of foreign exchange from Africa by retaining a substantial proportion of reinsurance premiums generated there-in with 41 member countries of the African Union and 111 reinsurance and insurance companies.