• The African Insurance Organization (AIO) launched the Africa Insurance Pulse
• Digitization to transform the continent’s insurance industry
• Delphine Traoré, President of the AIO and regional COO of Allianz Africa shared Allianz’s vision and experience across the continent.

The African Insurance Organization (AIO) launched the African Insurance Pulse on the topic, “The Digitization of Insurance Markets in Africa”. This edition was produced by Faber Consulting on behalf of the AIO and was exclusively sponsored by Africa Re.

On this occasion, a webinar was organized in early October in order to share feedback on digitization experiences and it was moderated by Jean Baptiste Ntukamazina, General Secretary of the AIO. Delphine Traoré, President of the AIO, Regional COO and Regional Executive Board member of Allianz Africa, Dr. Corneille Karekezi, Group Managing Director and CEO of Africa Re, Henner Alms, Partner at Faber Consulting and Devesh Biltoo, CEO of Quantum Insurance were speakers at this event and shared numerous use cases.

According to the report, the digitization of operations will enhance the appeal and affordability of risk transfer products in Africa. Underwriting and risk management will benefit from improved access to data and analytics. At the same time, technology will help streamline the insurance value chain and enhance the efficiency of administrative processes. To this end, African insurers and reinsurers are considering various strategies. Allianz Africa has initiated a digital transformation project, with its masterpiece being the ABS (Allianz Business System). ABS is a platform developed with a customer-centric approach to standardize and harmonize products, systems, and processes across the continent.

“In order to enable digitization achieve the intended goals, we must start with a fundamental aspect of simplifying before digitizing. This is to reduce the complexity of processes and products to offer our customers, a unique and optimal customer experience, wherever they are”, explained Delphine Traoré.

In the long run, speakers expect that most insurance products will be distributed digitally. They also agree on the prioritization of products adressing individual customers, followed by Enterprise products and finally, specialized solutions.

Delphine Traoré added: « We continue our digitization journey by adding new lines of businesses and products to the ABS platform, making them more accessible to our business partners and clients. This is even more relevant now, given the ongoing health crisis that is changing our way of doing business in the insurance sector ».

The main factors promoting digitization are the increasing mobile phone penetration, a large number of young people, a growing middle class and compulsory insurance schemes. Although there is a strong consensus that digitization will boost insurance sales, insurers are still cautious as to when these effects will materialize. According to the report, most African insurance executives thus take a careful approach when investing in technology, using an equivalent of up to 2% of their revenues to drive forward their digitization strategy.

Allianz Africa does not share the same point of view: “We are investing 10% of our GWP in digitization. It started well before COVID-19.”, said Delphine Traoré, Regional COO of Allianz Africa.

During this digital transformation, the internal customer was also included: An important infrastructure transformation took place. “In less than 18 months, all our entities migrated to a new, fully digital operating system. All employees can access their files and data from any computer around the world to be well-equipped to support the customers at any time.”explained Delphine Traoré,.

This transformation will ultimately help increase insurance penetration, encourage innovation and promote financial inclusion. These are some of the key findings of this year’s edition of African Insurance Pulse.

About Allianz:
The Allianz Group is one of the world's leading insurers and asset managers with more than 100 million retail and corporate customers in more than 70 countries. Allianz customers benefit from a broad range of personal and corporate insurance services, ranging from property, life and health insurance to assistance services to credit insurance and global business insurance. Allianz is one of the world’s largest investors, managing around 766 billion euros on behalf of its insurance customers. Furthermore, our asset managers PIMCO and Allianz Global Investors manage almost 1.7 trillion euros of third-party assets. Thanks to our systematic integration of ecological and social criteria in our business processes and investment decisions, we hold the leading position for insurers in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. In 2019, over 147,000 employees achieved total revenues of 142 billion euros and an operating profit of 11.9 billion euros for the group.www.allianz.com

About Allianz Africa
In Africa, Allianz is currently present in 12 countries and accompanies clients in 49 markets. Its 2,908 employees achieved regional revenues of 663 million euros in 2019. Allianz also provides micro-insurance for 1.7mn low-income families and individuals in Africa.

www.allianz-africa.com

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About African Insurance Organization (AIO)
Established in 1972 in Mauritius, the African Insurance Organisation (AIO) is a non-governmental organisation recognised by many African governments. Following the headquarters’ agreement with the Government of Cameroon, the Permanent Secretariat of the AIO was set up in Douala. The AIO pursues the objective of developing a healthy insurance and reinsurance industry in Africa and promoting inter-African co-operation in insurance. Currently, the AIO has 362 members, 342 of them from 47 countries in Africa and 15 associate international members from 9 countries.
www.african-insurance.org