Overview of Insurance and Insuretech in Africa

The Middle East and Africa (MEA) region offers a strong potential in insurance and, specifically insurtech. The Fintech Times looks at the African continent in particular with regards to its insurance market.
An overview of the insurance industry was highlighted in the recent report from The Fintech Times, Fintech: Middle East and Africa 2021 Report, where it discussed various facts in the current state of the continent that is home to over 1.3 billion people.

Africa Is uninsured but has potential to grow

First, Africa is generally less developed than more advanced economies (it is home to some of the world’s poorest countries) and this is reflected in the insurance industry where penetration is some of the world’s lowest. It is also home to a young population as well. For instance, even though Nigeria has an active and emerging fintech scene, the country’s insurance penetration is a lowly 0.4 per cent. Indeed, for much of Africa generally, a combination of factors – from the low income of customers to the large unbanked sector – has resulted in relatively low insurance levels. The report highlighted this, which originally was researched by a report from Deloitte.