Tanzania: Crdb to Become Full-Fledged Coronavirus Insurance Firm in Two Years

By Abduel Elinaza

CRDB Bank Insurance Broker is considering becoming a full-fledged insurance firm in next two years after acquiring all necessary factors of

an insurer--capital, skills and customer base.

The brokerage firm, which started as an agency almost a decade ago, its status currently climbed to among top five insurance brokers based on premium in the country.

The Broker General Manager, Mr Arthur Mosha said the firm saves both bank's customers and non customers to a level that the premium climbed from 25bn/- in 2016 to 44.2bn/- last year.

"I do not see why we shouldn't be an insurer firm in the next two years. "Since we have adequate capital, skills and customers base plus ability to expand further," Mr Moshi said in an interview in Dar es Salaam over the weekend.

The firm, separated from CRDB Microfinance four years ago, has 40-strong staff country wide serving clients using about 300 bank branches from its base in Dar es Salaam.

"One can access our service throughout our network countrywide where at each seven zones we have an insurance expert," the General Manager said.

The brokerage started in 2011 as an agency offering both general and life insurance policies after the bank faced various challenges on covering its loan products.

A year later was attached to microfinance division and started to serve both the bank and non-bank customers before turned to a brokerage, which was 100 per cent owned by CRDB in 2016.

Its premium kept on increasing from 800m/- when was an agency to 3.5bn/- in 2012 to 12bn/- in 2014 before reaching 25bn/- a year before it becomes a full-fledged insurance brokerage firm.

The firm offers various insurance covers where it's life products lead followed by health and motor insurances.

"The primary objective is to serve the bank (CRDB) customers, but later due to our innovating products started to attract non-bank customers," Mr Mosha said.

Currently 70 per cent are bank customers while the remaining 30 per cent are non-bank customers. The leading products are life, health and newly introduced Educare plan, which offers both life cover and acts as a savings platform.

The country insurance market grew by 8.6 per cent in gross premiums written to 691.9bn/- in 2018 compared to 637.1bn/- in 2017.

The industry's contribution to the GDP, based on recently rebased estimates, was 0.53 per cent in 2018.

In 2018, the insurance industry had a total of 31 insurance companies (including 1 reinsurance company), 109 insurance brokers, 635 insurance agents and 55 loss assessors and adjusters.