A question continually on the mind of Insurance organisations and leaders in the insurance sector in Africa is “How to Make Insurance Attractive to Young Africans”? If you wonder why so much ado about increasing the uptake of policy covers by young Africans is needful. The reason is simple; it translates to exponential growth for the sector because Africa’s youthful population under 25 years make up 60 per cent of the continent’s population, making Africa the youngest continent in the world.
Hence, if anyone or group is going to achieve this, they must rethink the entire insurance value chain and what the new consumer behaviours have shaped the growth of other sectors and how to localise it.
Technology and embedded insurance trends are leading new forms of distribution for insurers to achieve this. Let us look at how to make Insurance attractive to young Africans.
Ways to Make Insurance Attractive to Young Africans
Go Paperless, Leverage Technology: Leveraging technology will be at the bedrock of serving African Millenials and Gen Zs better. I recently took an insurance policy from a pan African Insurer. Nothing about the registration process was paperless, which made the registration process more cumbersome. It got me thinking, how about if I could do that via a USSD code or very simplified on a mobile app?
African insurers need to digitise their insurance stack and go paperless. Doing so will open up a seamless customer experience for new insurances policy takers, improve documentation, data safety, faster processes and save cost. Also, the business benefits of leveraging technology to make your Insurance business process paperless have a substantial environmental reward. This can become a CSR project for African Insurers like their counterparts abroad.
Adopt New Channels of Distribution: Insurers on the continent need to begin distribution on channels young people are chiefly found on their mobile phones. Mobile technology in Telecommunication, eCommerce and Marketplaces, Financial Services, Ridesharing, Gig Economy, and Logistics have witnessed tremendous growth in Africa over the past two decades. The majority of which was driven by its adoption among Africa’s young generation.
With Embedded Insurance API’s, all of these channels become a new touchpoint for partnerships between Insurer’s and non-insurance businesses to increase insurance uptake, making it attractive.
A young person purchasing the latest smartphone or other electronic gadgets from an eCommerce store should be able to secure a Device Insurance policy against damage or theft while checking out their phone.
Tailored Products and Pricing: Financial challenges still exist for Africa’s youthful generation. While the average premiums percentages charges might be lower on the continent than others, designing more customised products and pricing can improve the adoption of covers. Insurance product pricing and payments can be pay-as-you-go or pay-for-what-you-use strategy to reduce their perception of Insurance as a burden on their finances.
Marketing and Sales Strategy: Marketing campaigns for insurance policies and organisations to drive sales should be audience-specific to their realities. Marketing and sales strategy should adopt storytelling techniques, influencer marketing, community marketing, and a mix of digital and traditional channels to reach and influence their buying behaviours.
Offer Crowdfunded Covers: Crowdfunding is a cultural phenomenon that isn’t new to us in Africa, and the young generation continues to adapt its use to different use cases. If you are abreast with charitable causes on social media from educational abroad and at home, house rent, healthcare and more. Individuals or groups fund these charitable causes through crowdfunded campaigns. Insurers on the continent should begin to design policy covers for areas like healthcare insurance to be crowdfunded.
Seamless Claims Experience: For every African Insurer, designing a seamless claims experience that processes claims in minutes would be huge for young African policyholders. Traditional claims processes are slow and never forthcoming when they are needed. See how we recently helped a pan African Insurer in over seven countries expedite their seamless claims processing to less than 5 minutes.
In conclusion, we believe that Africa’s youth are ready to drive insurance uptake on the continent, but African Insurers must begin to optimise for their consumer behaviours. Learn how Octamile can help your Insurance or non-insurance businesses protect Africans from financial loss with Insurance; click here to schedule a meeting.
