(Ecofin Agency) - The 44th General Assembly of the Federation of African National Insurance Companies (FANAF) opens today February 17, 2020, in Libreville, Gabon against the backdrop of multiple exchanges on the digitalization of the insurance sector. 

Digital transformation is a great opportunity to modernize the insurance sector in Africa where nearly 600 million people now use mobile phones. However, the isolation of several areas still makes it impossible for insurers to set up physical services on the continent.  

With digitalization comes the issue of data management and beyond personal aspects, this is a key priority of the digital process. For insurers, interacting virtually with potential clients increases the risk of information mismatch and thus of an accumulation of incorrect data. They say there is a need to find a way to update data in order to assess the right price for risk coverage.

Several insurance companies have gone digital in Africa, but the objectives seem to be more in the inclusion of insurance services and the improvement in the number of insured people. Managing the data and related knowledge has become a new insurance business that goes beyond actuarial science.

For many insured persons, this data issue can quickly become a real problem. They sometimes encounter information that was not normally or understandably transmitted to them. Similarly, it has often happened that, although insured, partner institutions of the insurers refuse to perform the service claiming that payments have not been made in the past; this is a recurring situation particularly in health insurance.

The adoption of digitalization by insurers in the FANAF zone coincided with mixed figures in terms of increase in written premiums which were up by 19.45% in 2017, a record since 2010 when the information was available. In 2018, premiums slightly increased by +0.15%.

Idriss Linge