On the night of September 5, a fire broke out at Athi River’s Katani Villas, bringing down multi-million shillings houses—an incident a typical underwriter might have noted with professional curiosity, pondering what it would mean for insurance and reinsurance claims in the market.
But as orange flames lit up the Athi River skies, a different blaze was already smouldering at the heart of Kenya Reinsurance Corporation (Kenya Re)—a boardroom inferno that gave Managing Director Hillary Wachinga little or no chance to ponder what the Katani blaze might mean for claims.
