By JUDITH NAMUTOWE –
LAWRENCE Sikutwa and Associates (LSA) Limited says it requires about US$4 million to set up an insurance company in Tanzania.
Group chairperson Lawrence Sikutwa told journalists in Lusaka that the expansion drive would constitute a substantial amount of money.
“We need a minimum $2 million to set up an insurance company in Tanzania but this will not be enough to get growing, pick up other claims and meet other expenses.
So we will need about $4 million to set up an insurance company in Tanzania and then we will look at how much will be required for other neighbouring countries,” Dr Sikutwa said.
He said LSA had been operating in Tanzania for six years now and was involved in general insurance.
He explained that having operated in Tanzania for six years, LSA Group believed that it had developed a brand strong enough on the back on which other companies could ride.
“In 2015, we expect to start life insurance. Life insurance market in Tanzania is quite huge.
Sixty per cent of that country’s population are Muslims who go for ‘Takafu’ type of insurance, but we are not ready for that yet. But for the Christian lot, we are ready to go in with life insurance,” he said.
Dr Sikutwa said for the Kenyan market, the Group wanted to look at what was possible in that country, but that the market would not come on stream until 2016.
He said the company was looking at participating in various other areas that they were involved in.
“Micro-finance in particular, we think that it’s something that we can look into and at other products in that country. However, there are opportunities in other countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for instance the Katanga region as well as the area of Kinshasa. These are areas one should be looking at and for us DRC market makes economic sense,” he said.
In Malawi, Dr Sikutwa said that the Group focused on micro-finance which would be opportune to enter into that market, while Zimbabwe, life assurance was the target.
“Hence we are currently speaking to three organisations that may come on board so that together we tackle this market and move forward,” he said