Overview of the Kenyan insurance industry

Vision 2030 is Kenya’s long-term development plan whereby the government has embarked on a journey to implement a series of programmes that seek to promote socio-economic development and raise Kenya’s status to a middle income country. To support Vision 2030, government introduced its Big 4 development plan in 2018 which aimed to address issues relating to affordable housing, universal healthcare, food security, and continued promotion of financial inclusion efforts including insurance.

Improving Kenya’s socio-economic status will aid in raising the insurance penetration levels which have remained for a long time below global averages which indicates a large, uninsured customer base. At 3%, Kenya has the third lowest insurance penetration rate in Sub-Saharan Africa with South Africa leading at 17%. This is due to most of Kenya’s population perceiving insurance as a “nice-to-have/easy to discard” product rather than one that is essential. There are 58 insurers and reinsurers in Kenya and the market is dominated by CIC, Jubilee, Britam, ICEA, Lion General and APA Insurance. General insurance dominates the industry, accounting for 60% of industry gross written premiums.