Let’s embrace mobile insurance

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FIRST Mutual Holdings Limited (FMHL) says the emergence of mobile micro-insurance is no threat to insurers, but must be embraced instead.
Over the past few years, innovative mobile-based micro-insurance has taken Zimbabwe’s insurance market by storm, with the Insurance and Pensions Commission (IPEC) saying the country has the highest number of such policies on the continent — at more than two million.
But FMH chief executive Douglas Hoto said: “We don’t regard that as competition because we can collaborate with them, and we already use a lot of mobile systems to distribute our own products, but it is a disruptive technology which means that some of the market share that you were getting through traditional methods may be gotten in a different way”.
“As a business, our response is not to fight fintech but actually embrace it and also use it. We may get concerned that we might lose market share but we don’t regard that as something that is bad because it talks to the needs of the customers,” he said on the sidelines of the recent Institute of Internal Auditors of Zimbabwe conference in Victoria Falls last week.
Micro-insurance is the protection of low-income earners against specific perils in exchange for regular premium payments.
IPEC says it aims to improve the reach of micro-insurance to improve the country’s insurance penetration rate, which is currently below 10 percent.
The regulator recently launched a micro-insurance framework in line with government’s national financial inclusion agenda.
On the fintech front, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed group says it has made significant progress in product strategy and review, “resulting in improved offerings for customers in the retail business, namely life and health”.
“In an environment that is dynamic with accelerating evolution and fintech disruption in the way business is conducted…innovation and product relevance will remain key,” Hoto said in a comment accompanying the group’s financial statements for the half year to June 2018.
FMHL reported a 102 percent increase in profit after tax for the half year to June 2018, to $8,7 million from $4,3 million recorded in prior comparable period in 2017.
This was on the back of a 38 percent increase in gross premium written, with most of the difference coming as a result of the group’s recent acquisition of NicozDiamond Insurance Company. newsdesk@fingaz.co.zw