Africa Digital Insurance Conference (ADIC 2020)

Africa Digital Insurance Conference (ADIC 2020) is a two-day conference set for the 24th and 25th of June 2020 in Nairobi, Kenya. Themed, ‘Digital Transformation of Insurance in Africa’, the Africa Digital Insurance Conference is inspired by the fact that while insurtech companies are yet to challenge the dominance of incumbent insurance providers, the emergence of these new competitors highlights the disruptive potential digital technology combined with the right mind-set hold. Has Africa tapped fully into this space? Digital plays an important role in product design, product distribution and service delivery in the insurance industry. It can speed up the time to market for new products, reduce the cost of the service and unlock markets which were previously perceived to be unviable. The leading players till now – insurance companies – have not been instrumental in trying to enable financial inclusion. The majority of the insurance companies have catered to the richer segments of the population or the emerging middle class. What this has resulted in is unfortunate. While insurance penetration has improved in the past in other parts of the world, Africa is unique. Despite having close to 16% of the global population, the current insurance penetration in Africa is about 3.5%. South Africa leads with 17%, while others lag. Kenya has a penetration of about 2.9% and in fact, leads East Africa with this low statistic. It is followed by Rwanda at 1.7% and Tanzania at 0.7%.