Anything that makes a policy buyer of a very expensive car feel valued would be a benefit.
Just like M-Pesa revolutionised the banking industry, we can only hope that a game-changer will do the same for the insurance industry.
Last month I ran a couple of pieces on the insurance industry in Kenya and its low penetration. Well, I might as well have asked a bunch of recovering alcoholics to describe their first hundred days of dryness because the amount of vitriol that some readers had about their own experiences warranted me to do what is hopefully a final piece on this clearly prickly topic.
This was JG’s take:
Another reason uptake of insurance products is so low is because of chronic mendacity in the sector. I bought an education policy which I came to learn is utter rubbish. An insider told me it would have been wiser to buy a money market fund as it has a better return, no lock-in period, surrender value etc.
But because the broker would make a higher commission, she sold me a bogus product oblivious or inconsiderate of my financial goals. [First off I must admit, I had to google what mendacity means. Let me tell you Maina, JG is on point like decimal and if you don’t know what it means, let your fingers do the googling for you]
Well, if JG was seated next to me I’d have given him a high five because his broker must have been the sister to another senior insurer who convinced me to take up two endowment policies. He left his insurance company employer shortly after his mendacious [See what I did there?] sales pitch.
I called the organisation wishing to change the policy and was informed, quite happily I might add, that I’d have to run a 42K marathon five times on a February 29th date with a solar eclipse dancing on the horizon before I could even think of cashing in on the policy. We live. We learn.
MG had the following to say:
I have motor insurance policies with one of the “reputable” companies, procured through a very reputable agent. My insurance premiums have been 3 percent of the value of the motor vehicle, but because these are old vehicles the actual amounts paid were reasonable. Recently I bought a Lexus SUV.
The agent increased the risk factor to 3.5 percent. I drive the car and have no claims history to talk about. The only reason my premium rate has gone up is that I have a more expensive car now. I have opted to self-insure and put the car on Third Party cover.
MG is not one of the infamous Subaru Boys who blast their Sunday afternoons through the tea farms in Limuru as if the devil himself is hanging off their exhaust pipes. He is a well-respected senior citizen in his 60s righteously indignant that his decades of making no insurance claims count for nothing.
The same kind of nothing that occupies the mind of over lappers on Riverside Drive. What could make a difference to MG is if the insurance company could perhaps provide product add-ons that justify the increased premiums but reward him for the no claims. For instance, a free set of tyres after three years of no claims or a top to toe car wash every month with deep interior cleaning.
Look, I’m just throwing crazy ideas out there, but anything that makes a policy buyer of a very expensive car feel valued would be a benefit.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. RM has been my insurance agent for the last 21 years. Through his policies I have been able to educate my children, build a house and buy a car at a time when I had left gainful employment and had no income to demonstrate to a bank official giving me the “Are you nuts asking for a car loan?” look.
My own mother swears by her medical insurance provider. She is happily golfing through her seventies while her provider pays for her annual medical check-ups and the firm has provided her good cover for the last 15 years.
I support her faith in the company because they paid for my late father’s medical bills when he was diagnosed and treated for cancer in India back in 2007. This company has singlehandedly kept my faith in medical insurance providers when there is very little faith to grasp onto.
There are good stories out there, don’t get me wrong. But they are drowned out by the bad stories, the dearth of product variety as well as the complicated messaging and contracting process that leads to misunderstanding and mistrust, the twin misses of the insurance industry.
Just like M-Pesa revolutionised the banking industry, we can only hope that a game-changer will do the same for the insurance industry. That revolution will not be televised.
