The marketing of insurance in Kenya: problems faced by independent insurance agents and their perception of the marketing assistance offered by the insurance companies

Abstract

The insurance industry plays a major socio-economic role in a developing country like Kenya. The vast aggregation of small sums from the numerous premium collections provides a fund that is an important source of finance for not only the privat~ sector but also the public sector. One of the prevailing set-backs to the insurance industry is it's lack of formalized marketing activities. The study reported in this project investigated the marketing problems encountered by independent insurance agents emanating from the insurance companies set-ups, the insuring public, the legislation and the lack of a representative body for agents. The study also investigated the perceptions of the independent insurance agents and those of the insurance companies on the marketing / assistance accorded agents to determine whether these perceptions tallied. ihe study reported here sampled two populations for the purposes of measuring their perceptions, that is independent insurance agents and insurance companies. Two questionnaires were used to gather the pertinent ured by use of semantic differential scales. The findings were as follows: Some 76% of the insurance agencies represented at least one insurance company with a well developed marketing department, 70% of the agencies represented at least one insurance company with a slightly well developed marketing department and 63% of the agencies represented insurance companies with no marketing department. From the study findings the four problem areas under investigation can be ranked as follows: The lack of a representative body for agents was found to be the major problem area. Followed closely by the problems emanating from the insuring public as the second major problem area. The third problem area was found to be the problems emanating from the insurance companies set-ups and finally the fourth problem area was the . problems emanating from the legislation. The data collecte~ on perceptions was analyzed and mean scores as well as proportions computed and graphed ences when the variouq aspects of alternative dimensions of marketing assistance