Bryan Toshi Bwana, the CEO Global Consulting Services illustrating the need for the insurance sector to innovate or perish during the awards gala
Insurers have been urged to innovate if they are to remain relevant and in business.
The call was made by Bryan Toshi Bwana, the Chief Executive Officer at Global Consulting Services during the inaugural Annual Insurance Innovation Awards held at Serena Hotel Kampala on December 18, 2020.
“Without innovation in insurance and without intelligent tools to support claims payment processes, underwriting processes and the customer experience journey, 98% of current insurers might be out of business in the next ten years,” Bwana said, adding: “A case in point is the risk banking faced when mobile money emerged. The sector had to quickly innovate a survival strategy and that is how agency banking was created. To survive and prosper into the future, insurance business must embrace a partnership between people and intelligence. Great things never come from comfort zones.”
The awards were coordinated by Global Consulting Services (GCS) on behalf of the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA). MAMM & Associates were the independent auditors for the entire process to ensure transparency and fairness.
According to IRA, the Awards were introduced to acknowledge and reward the exceptional work and the results gained by the trailblazers of the corporate domain, in the wake of COVID-19 and the ever increasing competitive market.
“The awards seek out the leading lights of the business industry, looking for those whose creativity, commitment, experience and strong leadership has helped them achieve success in an increasingly challenging corporate climate. These awards recognise and honour the most innovative individuals and insurance companies along with their C-Level executives, whilst rewarding remarkable success in innovation in all its forms,” IRA CEO, Ibrahim Kaddunabbi Lubega said earlier while announcing the awards.
Categories of the Awards included; Most Innovative Insurance Product Award, Most Innovative Insurance Broker Award, Most Innovative Bancassurance Agent Award, Innovative Life Insurance Agent of the year, Innovative Non-Life Insurance Agent of the year and Most Innovative Loss Assessor/Adjustor/Risk Manager.
According to Global Consulting Services boss, Bwana, the pace of technology innovation in the world is disrupting commercial underwriting and the entire insurance business in general.
He revealed that commercial insurance has for the last 40 years counted on a strong underwriting workforce and today, they still rely on the same experience that is labour intensive.
“This makes the sector face continuously increasing risk, manual processing of data and enormous effort to assess the ever increasing volumes of files,” Bwana said, adding: “We have realized that in insurance now, more than 50% of the day is spent core processing of physical files with only 20% of the time spent on looking for business. Against this drop in efficiency, the underwriters’ job is getting even harder.”
He added that complex new risks are cropping up, for example, cyber protection, natural catastrophe, fraud, globally integrated supply chains, digital products among others.
Bwana noted that GCS prides itself on the validity of these awards and winners.
“The awards were given solely on merit and are awarded to commend those most deserving for their innovations, inventiveness, ingenuity and hard work, distinguishing them from their competitors and proving them worthy of recognition,” he said.
