The annual report by the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) revealed that the Kenyan Insurance Industry recorded an impressive 6 percent increase in its gross premiums for the year 2019 and bringing the total figure to 229.5 billion Kenyan Shillings. This is significantly higher than the 216.3 billion Kenyan Shillings recorded in 2018.
The annual report by the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) which was officially released on Friday the 2nd of October 2020 also revealed that the insurance industry’s asset base achieved an 11.7 percent growth to 709 billion Kenyan Shillings. This is higher than the 635 billion Kenyan Shillings achieved in 2018.
Majority of the asset base was to a large extent (83.8 percent), made up of investments.
Investments growth as well by 13.3 percent bringing the total from 524.24 billion Kenyan Shillings in 2018, to 594.03 billion Kenyan Shillings in the year under review (2019).
9 percent of the investments were term deposits at 53.5 billion Kenyan Shillings, ordinary shares at 9 percent; 53.5 billion Kenyan Shillings as well, investment property at 14 percent; 83.2 billion Kenyan Shillings, and government securities at 61.6 percent; 365.82 billion Kenyan Shillings.
In the year under review (2019), the net profit of the Kenyan insurance industry grew by an astonishing 108.0 percent from 7.27 billion Kenyan Shillings to 15.12 billion Kenyan Shillings.
Nairobi County which continued to provide the highest industry premiums every year since 2015, also provided 83.2 percent of the total Gross Direct Premium for 2019.
Nairobi County achieved 88.3 billion Kenyan Shillings from life business and 99.6 billion Kenyan Shillings from general business, bringing the capital’s total revenue from the insurance sector to an impressive 187.9 billion Kenyan Shillings.
Mombasa County was 2nd with 2.2 billion Kenyan Shillings from life business and 8.5 billion Kenyan Shillings from general business, bringing its total revenue from the insurance sector to 10.7 billion Kenyan Shillings
Insurance agents provided 52.6 percent of the total insurance industry’s premium. 14.1 percent was directly while 33.2 percent was via insurance brokers.
Godfrey Kiptum while speaking via a virtual press conference during the release of the report on Friday the 2nd of October 2020 revealed that all the preliminary projections for 2020 with regards to the insurance industry will be affected by the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
According to him, “Its still to early to come up with definitive figures but the industry will obviously be affected by COVID-19. For instance motor vehicle insurance has taken a hit from the now lifted ban on inter-county movement.”
The East African nation of Kenya is currently the 3rd most resilient insurance market in Africa. South Africa and Morocco are the top 2 with South Africa accounting for 69.1 percent of Africa’s insurance market share, and Morocco accounting for 6.8 percent. Kenya’s 3.3 percent, puts it at 3rd place.
In 2019 the insurance penetration which is essentially the ratio of Gross Direct Insurance premiums to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dropped to 2.34 percent with the world’s average insurance penetration at 7.2 percent.
Insurance density (which is the ratio of Gross Direct Insurance Premiums to the total population) grew to 4,788 Kenyan Shillings in 2019 from 4,525 Kenyan Shillings in 2018. This showed the steady in spending on insurance.
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