EAST AFRICA INSURANCE REGULATORS MOVE TO HARMONIZE SUPERVISION AS REGIONAL MARKET DEEPENS

African insurance regulators have agreed on measures aimed at reducing regulatory fragmentation and strengthening oversight of an increasingly interconnected regional insurance market.
The decisions were reached during meetings of the East African Insurance Supervisors Association (EAISA) in Nairobi, bringing together regulators from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Discussions focused on regulatory harmonization, consumer protection and technology-enabled supervision across the East African Community.
The adoption of a harmonized Insurance Core Principles assessment template intended to provide regulators with a common basis for assessing supervisory standards, identifying regulatory gaps and promoting peer learning was among the key adoptions.
EAISA Interim Chairman Dr. Protazio Sande who is also Acting Chief Executive Officer of Uganda’s Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA), said the objective was to create greater consistency while allowing regulators to benchmark their respective markets.
“We have agreed to harmonize a template so that we can do assessment at country level, but also compare with our peers,” Dr. Sande said.