Browsing: BIMA

While all the current talk in the insurance industry is everything about insurance penetration and how it is not happening in Kenya, an illegality continues to be perpetrated raising a very disturbing and pertinent question: could we be holding onto fake insurance certificates?

Legally as will be demonstrated below, certificates are supposed to be issued by insurance companies in Kenya and no other entity. Where they are issued by any other entity, then questions arise as to the legality of the whole exercise.

In The Official Gazette of The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya of November 14,1944 a Bill was proposed to make provision against Third Party Risks arising out of the use of Motor Vehicles.

Section 5, subsection (a) of the proposal states that the policy of insurance must be a policy which,

“is issued by a person who is approved by the Governor, by notice in the Gazette, …

When the Kenyan budget was read back in 2018 in the month of June, expectations were high for the insurance industry that the budget would create an enabling environment to do business.

Various proposals had been fronted from our organisation on what we would want to be included in the budget, among them the recognition of the various industry associations, ours included, and how they would be encompassed into the Insurance Act. However the proposals were not what we expected and the main issue that came out in the Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2018 was that it would be criminal to handle insurance premiums from then on by amending Section 156 of the Insurance Act. What is important to remember is that Section 156 of the Insurance Act talks about premiums handling.

To quote subsection (3) “A premium collected by an agent or a cheque received by him shall be deposited …