ICEA Lion Group is one of the largest insurers and financial services companies in East Africa. The Company's vision is to be the leading Pan-African provider of insurance and related financial services. The brand speaks to the customer's life-changing moments, with a promise to be there when such moments arise. With this perspective and the focus on customer safety, loyalty and insights, ICEA Lion General Insurance launched the first app-based insurance telematics solution dubbed "Secudrive" in Kenya in June 2021.
ICEA Lion Group's newly launched solution, built on the award-winning Coloride app, runs on Swiss Re's cloud based IoT platform and includes service and support from the leading reinsurer and from their technology hub in the automotive and mobility markets, Movingdots. Secudrive provides world-class event and maneuver detection, a claims reporting functionality, breakdown services, as well as scoring and analytics support to gain customer insights and improve the overall risk management.
Secudrive will use real-time data to encourage customers to adopt better driving behaviours – reaping attractive rewards for doing so – and thereby reduce accidents and lower the cost of their customers' insurance. Secudrive is set to continue the growth of customer-focused insurance models, which focus on ensuring that the cost of insurance is determined by an individual's scores as opposed to uniform pricing. Individual drivers are set to enjoy discounts of up to 15% on their premiums at the end of the policy period, depending on their scores. The customer's driving behaviours will also attract points, which can be redeemed for a variety of services from selected providers.
According to the Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) Report 2020, gross written premiums across the industry stood at KES 232.95 billion as at the end of Q4 2020, representing an increase of 1.8% from KES 228.80 billion in Q4 2019. General insurance business underwriting results improved from a loss of KES 2.97 billion in Q4 2019 to a loss of KES 1.18 million in Q4 2020. This could be due to decreases in incurred claims and management expenses during the COVID-19 lockdown.
General insurance business remained the largest contributor to industry insurance premiums, contributing 56.2% of the total premiums. Motor insurance and medical insurance classes of business account for 67.4% of the gross premium income under the general insurance business.
The high premium volume classes of general insurance business contributed the largest proportions of incurred claims; medical (36.7%), motor private (27.2%) and motor commercial (24.1%). Motor classes of insurance business comprised of 51.3% of total claims incurred compared to their contribution of 33.0% of the total premiums under general insurance business. Motor claims saw the largest decrease compared to the other classes. The decrease in claims under motor classes of business is mainly attributed to travel restrictions that were in place throughout the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Automotive and Mobility Solutions (AMS) team at Swiss Re has been driving innovation in the automotive insurance sector since 2016, supporting primary insurers, mobility providers and OEMs through the latest challenges in the automotive industry.
"By adopting telematics technology, motor insurers can digitise the customer experience, risk assessment and claims handling. Our end-to-end telematics solution Coloride helps clients cut costs, improve risk selection, increase customer loyalty and prepare for the connected-car future. ICEA Lion Group's successful launch in Kenya marks an important breakthrough for the automotive and mobility landscape in the region. Our wish is that local roads become safer and the risk of an accident is reduced, whilst drivers enjoy an insightful experience with Secudrive. This fits in with Swiss Re's vision to make the world more resilient", Andrea Keller, Head of Automotive & Mobility Solutions, Swiss Re.
Paul Muthaura, Chief Executive Officer ICEA LION General Insurance observed: "We are happy that we bring yet another solution that makes the customer take back control. Our journey to making solutions of this nature will continue on to other products and services. Secudrive will potentially result in reduction of accidents as drivers improve their behaviour on the road. It will also mean faster claims settlement for the customer as one is able to report a claim on straight from the scene of accident. It is a critical delivery of our promise to ensure we bring to market sustainable, customer-focused insurance and investments solutions."
If you are an insurance company, OEM or mobility player keen on learning more about our modular, end-to-end telematics app solution Coloride, the award-winning ADAS risk score, our fleet management solutions and other products, you can find more on our website.
