Kenya Insurance Companies Performance by Premiums 2017

The Kenya insurance industry report for the year 2017 is finally out and the industry continues to show a lot of promise in a year marked by a challenging business environment. Of the 61 life and non life insurance companies in the Kenyan sector, the total premiums for the year 2017 grew to just under KSh 207 Billions growing by an impressive 6.5% from the 2016 total of KSh 197 billions. It is for the first time that the industry has recorded an underwriting profit in the past 3 years coming in at KSh 556 millions f from a loss of Sh390.8 million in 2016 and Sh226.2 million in the previous year. Once again the biggest lines of business remain the medical insurance at 38 Billion followed by motor commercial at 23 Billions and lastly the private car insurance segment at 21 Billions.

Among the biggest players, BRITAM recorded a profit of 528 millions down from the KSh 1.9 Billions from the year before owing to the one off change in the accounting methodology just implemented.

The widely celebrated marine insurance that was set to explode in volumes after the Kenyan government ruling all importers to take insurance locally only recorded a miserly rise to 3.6 Billion from 2.7 Billions in 2016.

In class-wise distribution of gross premium income written by long term insurers, pensions recorded the highest at 29.21% followed by life assurances at 21.40%. The Insurance Regulatory Authority of Kenya (IRA) and the Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) continues to drive the industry towards more profitability using a mix of training, lobbying and introducing controls to safeguard the industry players. Below we summarise the performance of Kenyan insurance companies by insurance premium performance by line of business in US Dollars.