Virtual i Technologies recently had the pleasure of participating in the Organisation of Eastern and Southern Africa Insurers Annual Conference 2021 in Mombasa, Kenya. Our Chief Product Officer, Ryan McGovern and Senior Risk Engineer, Nicholas Agama shared major insights and discussed trends currently being undertaken across the insurance industry in Africa.
The Key Message: Adoption of Technology and Digitalization
The central theme heard from the major insurance industry players in Africa was a resounding focus on innovation in new product development. A rise in InsurTech startups across the region are providing new ways for insurers and reinsurers to leverage the power of technology and digital analytics for portfolio management. Adoption of new technology and digitization brings along a critical need for talent and resource management – building the necessary capacity and skills development across an organization necessary to support and manage the ongoing digital transformation. Encouraging new talent into the insurance industry and supporting career development with technical skills training was an important topic of discussion during OESAI 2021.
“COVID has certainly brought to light areas where technology must be embraced, but on the continent where investment in infrastructure to support these advances in technology is still progressing.”
Additional topics of discussion were heard throughout the various seminars and included issues around micro insurance, financial inclusion, and of course, the impact of COVID on insurance industry business models. It is contended that the impact of COVID, will drive us to embrace technology that allows us to operate in a semi-variable environment, whether that be remote, onsite, or any combination that allows various workfunctions to be supported through technology and allow life to move on. COVID has certainly brought to light areas where technology must be embraced, but on the continent where investment in infrastructure to support these advances in technology is still progressing, it is critical to think about measures which provide bridging mechanisms to the future, such as technical skills training, to ensure a rapid adoption when the time is right.
Thus, it can be argued that the common ground is encouraging the shift from the traditional and conventional ways of doing business, to preparing for the future of work. In order to switch up our mindset and prepare for the future, it can be valuable to embrace disruption. Disrupting our traditional ways of performing data analysis to leveraging the power of big data and data sharing, one of the big topics of discussion during the conference.
According to the observations of Nicholas Agama, the insurance industry lagged behind. It should be thought about how the industry catches up with its counterparts in other financial institutions likebanks. It is needed to catch up with institutions like banks, where everything gets digitized. Nowadays, users do not even have to walk into a bank to get out, but for insurance, distributors still want to see a physical policy document. Hence, we need to move away from that as the importance of digitalization is key. That was one big takeaway from the conference.
