Poor African Contribution to Global Insurance Industry

March 19 - The United Nations Trade and and Development group has issued a report showing just how little impact insurance contributions by Africa has on the total global insurance industry.

According to the report, there has been absolutely no improvement in the contributions made by the African continent as a whole between the years 1999 and 2007, despite the fact that the world's other continents showed steady improvements overall.

The North American continent, for example, recorded an increase in gross premium contribution from 34.5% to 37.2% in that time period, while Europe's contribution grew from 31.4% to nearly 32%.

Africa contributes only 1.3% - a statistic, as stated, that hasn't changed in 8 years.

Out of this 1.3%, South Africa contributes a staggering 93%, putting this country squarely at the forefront of the entire African insurance industry.

However, despite the vibrancy of the South African market, the figures within the country are not very encouraging.

When compared to other financial services industries in South Africa, growth in the insurance sector was very low in the years 2004 - 2007.

"The number of people who opened bank accounts for example increased by 7 million over the period, while only 700,000 people took out life insurance and 200,000 applied for motor insurance," explained an executive at Industrial and General Insurance, Remi Olowude. "Whereas there were 7.7 million cars on South African roads in 2003, only 2.2 million people had motor insurance in 2008."

Recent reports have said that African countries are trying to move away from an elitist insurance industry and trying to make products more affordable to the general population, by adopting national health schemes, for example.