INSURANCE INDUSTRY RIFE WITH RESILIENCE AND POTENTIAL

  • The BIHL Group explores opportunities for African insurance and efforts to increase penetration with stakeholder through webinar
  • The time is now for us to enhance resilience and seize opportunity for Africa’s insurance sectors
  • Webinar series promotes industry dialogue

 

Dialogue around the Fourth Industrial Revolution, (4IR), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technological advancement continue to abound, and as the world continues to grapple with the Coronavirus pandemic, these aspects are staying to play an even more crucial role in business success. The financial services sector is no exception, the Botswana Insurance Holdings Limited (BIHL) Group argues, and the insurance space is a key example. This sentiment was further supported by the Group in the second instalment of their webinar series for key stakeholders, promoting sector dialogue from leading industry experts.

Virtually hosted on the 3rd of November 2020, the platform brought together attendees eager to see greater unpacking of key issues at hand for the insurance space. The programme delved into a discussion around the theme “Opportunities for African Insurance and Efforts to Increase Penetration.” Key to leading the discussion was Giles Waugh, Deloitte Associate Director and Qualified Actuary, Catherine Lesetedi, The BIHL Group CEO, and Ronald Samuels, Botswana Life CEO.

Commented Lesetedi: “Africa’s insurance industry remains largely underdeveloped, with insurance penetration in the continental region deemed low by global standards. Technological advances have now moved to the front of insurers’ minds in efforts to revise this. However, there is a need for insurers to implement various strategies and efforts to truly unearth the untapped potential and emerging opportunities for growth in the African market.”

 

Notable developments in the space, according to Waugh, include:

 

  • Africa is the second largest continent and currently home to 4 of the 18 largest countries; in time, this will move from 4 to 9. Opportunity is rife.
  • GDP growth in Africa is increasingly high
  • Insurance penetration is low, and this must change
  • With the pandemic, we have observed changes in strategy towards products and services
  • Government support remains crucial, and Government in turn needs support
  • Resilient leadership is integral right now

 

Said Waugh: “Resilient leaders in a crisis tackle specific actions across three dimensions: Respond; Recover; and Thrive.” It is in these dimensions, Waugh argues, that we will start to see real and sustainable change.

 

The webinar series, which covers key thematic issues and opportunities in the financial services sector, has proved popular thus far in encouraging dissection of commonalities and ideation of professionals in the field. The platform comes as yet another initiative set to ensure the limitations brought upon the pandemic do not hinder intellectual progress, sector development, stakeholder engagement, and continued engineering of legacies in line with the purpose of the BIHL Group.

 

#45YearsStrongerTogether #EngineeringLegacies