Insurers have been challenged to enhance innovation in the areas of micro-insurance, claims settlement, and cyber insurance, to drive inclusive insurance and boost penetration.
The appeal was made by the Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda (IRA) Chief Executive Officer, Alhaj Kaddunabbi Ibrahim Lubega during the 60th industry CEOs breakfast meeting at Kampala Serena Hotel on May 9, 2024.
Alhaj Kaddunabbi Ibrahim Lubega noted that enhancing innovation in the above three areas will boost confidence in the sector and make insurance more relevant which in turn will boost sector growth.
He noted that the increasing use of technology to boost business efficiency has skyrocketed cyber risks requiring that insurers rise-up to the game by innovating solutions that manage cyber-attack crises, and develop a proper response to enable businesses bounce back into operations in case the unfortunate happens.
He added that enhancing innovation in cyber insurance will play an important role as businesses continue to digitalise and are required to become more resilient.
Commenting about claims settlement, Alhaj Kaddunabbi said that ideas that facilitate quicker and smoother claims payment will boost trust and confidence in the industry and encourage more people to buy insurance confident that should the insured risk occur, they will be reinstated to the position they enjoyed before.
The 60th CEOs Breakfast meeting was organised under the theme: Insurance Regulatory Sandbox. Lessons Learnt.
Alhaj Kaddunabbi urged insurers to take advantage of the IRA Regulatory Sandbox and the IRA InsureX program to sharpen and test their ideas before going to the market.
The Sandbox establishes an insurance Regulatory Framework for Fintechs experimentation and innovation with technology in order to improve efficiency, access to insurance services and create new opportunities while exposing the insurance sector to emerging technologies without compromising customer protection.
The InsureX program on the other hand is a product incubator and accelerator, supporting founders and executives building the next generation of technology-enabled insurance solutions, with an aim of building a robust insurance innovation ecosystem leveraging technology to drive adoption and use so as to boost penetration by 2025. IRA partnered with the Innovation Village through the Future Lab Studio to develop this Program.
Since its establishment in 2000, the Sandbox has only admitted four solutions despite receiving numerous enquiries from fintechs and aspiring tech innovators while only nine solutions have so far been admitted into the Insurex programme.
This, according to the CEO, indicates that there is need for regulatory coaching, need to enhance data privacy and intellectual property protection.
“There is need to increase support capacity to meet high demand for regulatory guidance, implement stricter upfront approvals for detailed, binding test plans to prevent scope creep and standardize robust confidentiality provisions to protect proprietary data and intellectual property,” Alhaj Kaddunabbi said.
He also alluded to the need to develop clear procedural roadmaps for approval and path-to-market after successful testing, deploy gamification and interactive tools to boost industry education and engagement and pursue strategic cross-sector regulatory partnerships for unified innovation guidance.