EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) 2018 Insurance Industry Annual Report. The Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) was established in 1987 as an independent non-profit making consultative and advisory body for insurance industry.

The report covers great economic milestones, regulatory and technological trends and risks that helped shape the face of the insurance sector globally, in Africa, East Africa and Kenya. It also gets to explore the outlook in these regions and delve deeper into the detailed performance of the Kenyan insurance sector. We shall focus mainly on technology specific elements in this report.

TECHNOLOGY AND CYBER-RISK OVERVIEW

Penetration rates

The insurance sector in Africa remains one of the least penetrated globally, yet it presents great opportunities for growth. The sector has been going through significant disruption triggered by digital transformation, unrelenting regulatory changes, demographic changes, revolving customer expectations and rapid urbanization which are shaping the future of the industry. Insurers that are customer-centric, innovative, and technologically up-to-date and who invest in talent of the future will lead the charge to increase insurance penetration across Africa as well as to survive disruption.

Issues Affecting Insurance Companies in Africa

• Technology

Mobile phones, social media and data analytics are some of the enablers to access customers more at reduced cost.

• Regulation

Insurers can choose to see new opportunities that come with regulations such as better management of risks, capital and improvement of processes

• Ownership of customer and personal data

To better meet customers’ needs, insurers need to own customers data as opposed to heavy reliance on brokers and agents. This helps analyze customer trends, promote risk-based pricing and designing of more appropriate products.

But, the problem is, do the insurance companies have a good understanding and control over their systems to handle personal data collection? Do they understand the risks arising from third party suppliers commercial partners?

Cyber Risk

One of the major challenges that insurance companies face is fraud. According to the insurance fraud report by FRISS (an institution that helps detect insurance fraud by utilizing (AI and data), about 10% of losses incurred annually in the US, are attributed to fraud.

The industry continues to face the risk of money laundering and terrorism financing through various channels such us covering illegal or fraudulently acquired property, providing covers to organizations associated with terrorism and overpayment of premiums funded by proceeds obtained through illegal means.

CONCLUSION

Insurance companies have adopted well-effective trends to curb these frauds such as sharing of information and risk detection through fraud pools, use of data analytics and data management systems, use of blockchain and the 2011 Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) guidelines

Another effective way is emphasizing on internal controls which is a core requirement of every business that adopts complex IT systems to collect, store and process accurate information.

We at Salaam Technology are focused on ensuring that:

• You have confidence in your IT systems and the information it produces.
• You need to assess how your IT systems provide adequate controls to ensure accurate financial reporting
• You need an independent review of your control environment and the IT governance framework.
• You have a third party who keeps custody of your financial information and you require an assurance of that information.
• You are implementing or have completed an implementation of a new system and need to review these controls.