Britain Holdings says its services have
largely been unaffected by Covid-19 social distancing protocols citing
its Sh3 billion business automation project.
Functions
such as sale of insurance, procurement as well as training of staff are
being done online without interaction with customers, managing director
Benson Wairegi said.
The company’s progressive
investment in a business process management software – technically
called Enterprise resource planning (ERP) – from 2015 has helped the
firm integrate with partners such as banks, intermediaries and financial
advisers.
“We are still able to engage with our
customers despite the (Covid-19) restrictions, notwithstanding that many
staff are working from home,” Mr Wairegi said.
“In
effect, that investment in technology has come in extremely handy in
helping us continue serving our customers, and even do better than we
used to do.”
He said the digital processes and product offering, dubbed
Jawabu, enables agents to initiate a sale, make quotations, receive
payments, issue electronic policies and generate electronic statements,
enabling business continuity in times of partial lockdowns. As a result,
the firm’s cost ratio – net savings to expenses – has dropped from to
33 per cent from more than 40 per cent.
Britam’s gross
earnings from premiums and fund management fees in the first half of the
year rose 8.71 per cent year-on-year to Sh14.06 billion, while
operating costs dropped 6.4 per cent to Sh3.90 billion.
“Initially,
the investment appeared very expensive and, in fact, there was a lot of
doubt if it was going to deliver any benefit. In early years, there was
a lot of stress because we could not immediately see the benefits,” Mr
Wairegi said.
“But through this investment, we have
been able to get over 10,000 new customers online … (and) service 30,000
others whom we would have lost because of social distancing.”
Despite
Britam’s capability in enabling customers buy insurance policies
directly through its mobile app, it will not cut off intermediaries whom
it says are still critical in growing uptake of insurance products.
Industry
statistics show uptake of insurance policies and covers has been on a
steady slide since 2013, touching a 15-year low of 2.43 per cent of
gross domestic product in 2018.
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