Africa-Press – Rwanda. The insurance sector in Rwanda is one of the many sectors that have not adapted, at a rapid rate, to the technological advancements the World has seen in the most recent decades.
While the financial sector in general shows fast progress to adopt technologies enabling financial service providers to build products that improve customer experiences, the insurance sector in particular has not had an equal response
The lack of continuous innovations in the insurance sector in Rwanda, it seems, stems from a tight regulatory environment and institutional voids both of which blend together to make it hard for entrepreneurs to innovate.
In auto insurance for example, which is the principal focus of this opinion piece, the modern day insurer relies on the law of large numbers (if the amount of exposure to losses increases, then the predicted loss will be closer to the actual loss) where statistical averages, in the high volume classes, are relied upon to rate risks.
If we acknowledge; however, the fact that a vehicle is most likely to be involved in a crash while it is moving than when it is parked, a person driving from Musanze to Kigali and back each day poses higher risk than one that leaves their car parked at home or in a secure garage and boards a KBS bus to work.
To put this into perspective, at a macro level the averaging favors the insurer but, on a micro level, the person using public transport to commute to work is subsidizing the person driving from and to Musanze every day.
Auto insurance costs increase from time to time because insurance providers use a standard set of variables: age, gender, vehicle type, location and driving history, among others, to determine the cost of insurance.
These variables are not actual risk measurement variables, they only estimate drivers’ risk based on rough demographic assumptions about drivers. Rough estimates of risk, together with rampant insurance fraud cripple investment returns for auto insurers and dissatisfactory services for the insured.
To provide a better customer experience that can help drivers save money and limit their exposure to risk, there is a need for a complete overhaul of the way the insurance system works by adopting models that more accurately predict drivers’ Propensity to Risk (PtR).
Such models reduce reliance on generic personal information and instead rely on real-world data collected and analyzed in real time. Tools like Onboard Diagnostics (OBDII) built-in into today’s vehicles can be tapped into to monitor behaviors so dangerous such as excessive speeding, rapid acceleration and hard braking.
These metrics coupled with mileage and frequent time of drive (day or night), can help insurers more accurately calculate risk. With more accurate risk estimates, insurers can cut down on their costs. Equally, drivers can track their own driving habits to reduce costs, save more money and improve safety for everyone on the road.
