Tanzania: Insurance Sector Set for Reforms As New Policy Is in Offing

Tanzanian new national insurance policy may be ready next year, a move which is expected to bring reforms in the sector to enable it contribute more to the national income.

Permanent Secretary of Finance and Planning Ministry, Emmanuel Tutuba hinted that the envisaged new policy would facilitate introduction of some new types of insurance coverage for different cadres.

“It will make the insurance coverage more wide, thus enabling inclusivity in the sector,” Mr Tutuba stated yesterday in Dar es Salaam when he launched a new workers’ council for the Tanzania Insurance Regulatory Authority (TIRA).

He explained that the draft document was ready after collecting views from stakeholders, and the next step was to submit it to secretariat of the cabinet ministers for government’s approval.

Speaking over reasons behind writing new policy, the permanent secretary said the current policy is outdated and needed replacement to accommodate, among others, technological changes in the sector.

‘The environment has changed, so it calls for improvement in the document,” he stressed.

The ministry has been in the processes of ensuring that the outdated policy is incorporated with new changes in order to get better policy which matches the current environment.

He argued that recently some changes were carried out in the financial institutions due to digital advancement whereby some of insurance covers could be issued through online.

“So the new policy would provide room for some companies to operate through online platforms,” he added.

On his part, Commissioner of Insurance Dr Mussa Juma, who is chairman of the new workers’ council, said the current policy hampers them from having good strategies and guidelines.

“When the new policy is ready we will ensure that the insurance sector contributes more to the national income…We have been getting challenges in performing our duties due to absence of the up-to-date policy,” Dr Juma noted.

Speaking on the new council, he said, it would have a duty of assessing performance of the authority and provide advice for improvements.

He further said the authority gears up to ensure that more Tanzanians are covered with the insurance by adding the number of covered Tanzanians from current 15 per cent to 50 per cent by 2030.