NAIROBI – UAP has rolled out a national empowerment programme for insurance intermediaries including agents and direct sales teams. The programme, which will cost an estimated KSh16 million, targets nearly 1,000 insurance agents and sales officials located in at least half of the 47 Counties.
UAP Insurance Managing Director, James Wambugu said during a media briefing that the programme, which was in its third year, had proven instrumental in shaping modern delivery of insurance services to the public. “The customer of today is very discerning, well-informed while the market approach to selling insurance has definitely changed. Being in a service business, our defining differentiator is in the way we handle customer issues,” said Mr Wamugu. “UAP has grown, and with this growth has come the inevitable shift to customer satisfaction which we want to maintain to ensure we achieve high levels of retention in this highly competitive industry,” he added.
Mr Wambugu said UAP’s empowerment program covered intensive training workshops to improve their insurance product knowledge, customer communication and relationship building as well as a detailed and interactive use of information technology services. He noted society had changed and people need to feel that insurance is relevant to their needs. But more importantly, he emphasized there is a greater demand for professionalism and quality products and services across all sectors.
“We have leveraged on the advancement of information and communications as well as mobile technology to develop modern relevant methods of delivering insurance services to the people and our intermediaries are central to their successful public understanding and uptake,” said Wambugu. Mr Wambugu said relevant product development and distribution was instrumental in the drive to increase insurance penetration and that UAP would continue to be at the forefront, focusing on innovation and empowering intermediaries to simplify and ease access for the insuring public and serving to enrich people’s lives.
The empowerment program also covers performance rewards to the intermediaries including cash and holiday travels to exclusive holiday destinations. Wambugu noted that UAP had taken a very deliberate partnership approach to working with the insurance intermediaries saying that collaboration extended to the area of business relationships which he was convinced would lead to a more robust insurance sector.
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