Britain Holdings says its services have largely been unaffected by Covid-19 social distancing protocols citing its Sh3 billion business automation project.
Functions such as sale of insurance, procurement as well as training of staff are being done online without interaction with customers, managing director Benson Wairegi said.
Britain Holdings #ticker:BRIT says its services have largely been unaffected by Covid-19 social distancing protocols citing its Sh3 billion business automation project.
Functions such as sale of insurance, procurement as well as training of staff are being done online without interaction with customers, managing director Benson Wairegi said.
The company’s progressive investment in a business process management software – technically called Enterprise resource planning (ERP) – from 2015 has helped the firm integrate with partners such as banks, intermediaries and financial advisers.
“We are still able to engage with our customers despite the (Covid-19) restrictions, notwithstanding that many staff are working from home,” Mr Wairegi said.
“In effect, that investment in technology has come in extremely handy in helping us continue serving our customers, and even do better than we used to do.”
He said the digital processes and product offering, dubbed Jawabu, enables agents to initiate a sale, make quotations, receive payments, issue electronic policies and generate electronic statements, enabling business continuity in times of partial lockdowns. As a result, the firm’s cost ratio – net savings to expenses – has dropped from to 33 per cent from more than 40 per cent.
Britam’s gross earnings from premiums and fund management fees in the first half of the year rose 8.71 per cent year-on-year to Sh14.06 billion, while operating costs dropped 6.4 per cent to Sh3.90 billion.
“Initially, the investment appeared very expensive and, in fact, there was a lot of doubt if it was going to deliver any benefit. In early years, there was a lot of stress because we could not immediately see the benefits,” Mr Wairegi said.
“But through this investment, we have been able to get over 10,000 new customers online … (and) service 30,000 others whom we would have lost because of social distancing.”
Despite Britam’s capability in enabling customers buy insurance policies directly through its mobile app, it will not cut off intermediaries whom it says are still critical in growing uptake of insurance products.
Industry statistics show uptake of insurance policies and covers has been on a steady slide since 2013, touching a 15-year low of 2.43 per cent of gross domestic product in 2018.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
