Damola Oloko, is the host and co-founder of the Insurtech Business Series, an InsurTech podcast focused on the African continent. Damola has been a champion for changing the Insurance industry in Africa by fostering new ideas and a focus on the important differences between each country, and even groups within those countries. We talked about some of the interesting new things brewing, for example in Kenya, which has been fostering InsurTech startup activity. We also talked about why penetration of insurance products has been as low as it has been in different African countries, and how the industry should think about changing the situation.

Highlights from the Show

• The African market, as a concept, is a hard thing to generalize across because the continent is so huge and made up of so many different contexts and sub-markets
• Overall, Insurance penetration is around 3%, which can mean there’s a lot of opportunity, with some markets much higher (South Africa in the mid-teens)
• Some markets, like Kenya, have a lot of innovation because of the need to spark growth, with the regulators supporting startups and innovation
• Nigeria, Damola’s home market, has only about 1% penetration, with more focus on Commercial lines than Personal or Retail products
• There’s a wave of new products that are simple to buy, through a mobile phone, and low cost to help drive growth of the market
• Can we take examples from one country and spread them to another, but with the adjustments needed for the local market needs and interests
• The future is really about being customer-centric, and where the African market can pioneer things because a lot of what exists does not fit with demand
• Partnerships have been successful, especially with telcos to take advantage of mobile technology adoption
• Simplification of products, breaking them down into components so the emerging markets can take advantage of them, but also not simplifying too much that we strip out any value
• A reminder from Damola to be more open-minded about new ideas, partner more, and look at other markets for inspiration and learning
• COVID-19 showed us how the status quo cannot remain the same
• We need to address the gender issue in insurance, both in having women in powerful or impactful roles, but also how the products the industry puts out service all genders rather than just being averaged out or focused on one.
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This episode is brought to you by Medallia (Medallia.com), and the book series, "The Future of Insurance: From Disruption to Evolution" by Bryan Falchuk (future-of-insurance.com).

Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes.

Music courtesy of UPbeat Music, available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Google Play. Just search for "UPbeat Music".