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
Citation
Masters in Business AdminstrationPublisher
Faculty Of Commerce