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State sets Sh2bn least premium for insurers eyeing cover for foreigners
Foreigners being cleared at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on January 11, 2024. Kenya mandates insurers to have Sh2 billion in premiums and proven claims history to offer compulsory medical cover for foreign visitors.
Local insurers seeking to provide medical cover to foreigners entering Kenya must have minimum gross premium collections of Sh2 billion annually, among other conditions that the state has placed for those eyeing the lucrative government tender.
The condition is contained in the policy framework to guide the roll-out of mandatory medical cover for foreigners visiting Kenya. Insurers must prove payment of claims worth Sh50 million in the last two years and provide a list of at least five reputable clients each with annual premiums of Sh100 million for the previous financial year.
Visitors staying in Kenya for less than a year are required to have an active medical cover, in line with the Social Social Health Insurance Act of 2023.
Kenya has now joined developed economies in compelling visitors to have the medical cover but the picking of insurers to offer the cover has delayed for over a year.
“The local insurance company shall be required to have a gross written premium of over Sh2 billion in Kenya, demonstrate evidence of having an extensive panel of medical providers in all 47 counties in Kenya to serve the insured,” the Ministry of Health says in the approved Administrative Framework for Implementation of the Mandatory Inbound Travel Health Insurance Program.
Most general insurance firms in Kenya posted gross written premiums of at least Sh2 billion in the year ended December 2024, according to data from the Insurance Regulatory Authority.
Short-term insurers who did not hit this figure in 2024 were Corporate Insurance, Kenya Orient, Pioneer, Takaful Insurance of Africa and Monarch Insurance.
The quest to tap insurers and reinsurers to provide the medical cover for visitors faced stiff opposition last year, forcing the government to withdraw a tender which had been structured to handpick the firms.
The State Department for Immigration and Citizen Services had in December 2024 floated a restricted multi-billion shilling tender for the compulsory medical cover for visitors.
The tender was cancelled in January last year after the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority flagged it for violating certain provisions of the procurement law.
Insurers through their lobby, Association of Kenyan Insurers (AKI) had protested the restricted tender as the state remained mum on the firms it had hand-picked to bid for the tender.
Top medical insurers had last year disclosed plans to form a consortium in the battle to win the tender even as they awaited the government to revise the rules for the tender.
A steady growth in the number of visitors to Kenya every year makes the cover lucrative. International visitors to Kenya grew by 14.6 percent to 2.39 million in 2024 from 2.089 million a year earlier.
They rose by a further 5.3 percent in the nine months to September 2025 to 1.88 million from 1.78 million a year earlier.
Kenya has adopted a designated approach for the mandatory medical cover for all visitors, meaning that the government will pick the specific insurance product and provider through a tender.
The other arrangement for the mandatory medical cover for visitors is the non-designated model where the travelers source insurance from their countries of origin.
Many countries implemented a mandatory travel insurance after the Covid-19 pandemic. Most European, American and Asian countries advise their nationals to purchase travel insurance before they travel abroad.
The mandatory medical cover for visitors is part of the new law anchoring universal healthcare in Kenya where all citizens aged 18 and above are required to register and contribute to the Social Health Insurance Fund.
