__________________

ICEA Lion’s Bob Tayebwa emerged the overall winner of the UIA Agents Awards 2023 defeating 6 other competitors in a hotly contested category.

The 13th edition of the Annual UIA Insurance Agents Awards was held at Speke Resort Munyonyo with the aim of celebrating insurance agents who play a critical role in the insurance industry cycle.

This year’s edition was held under the theme: “Celebrating Agents as catalysts of change in the industry” and will recognize outstanding Agents in the following categories:

Some of the categories celebrated this year included Best New Agent, Best Life Agent - High Premiums, Best Life Agent - High Policies, Best Life Agent - High Persistence, Best MTP Agent Eastern Region, Best MTP Agent Central Region.

Speaking during the event, UIA Chairman Executive Committee Latimer Mukasa noted that its prudent that they celebrate the agents who make up 60% of the entire work force in the insurance industry.

UIA Chairman Executive Committee Latimer Mukasa during the event on Friday. (Credit: Simon Okitela)

“We want to commend the agents who took part in this year’s awards. Agents play a significant role in ensuring our success as an industry and their efforts have enabled us to register growth over the years. We believe with initiatives like these and others, we should see our penetration grow to the desired 3%,” Latimer added.

He said that agents are a very viable and visible channel for promoting this industry as they tend to be the face of insurance beyond the respective companies they represent.

The chairman also disclosed that they are currently engaging the Ministries of Finance, the parliament and through the sector regulators like the IRA, URBRA, FIA on issues regarding taxation in the insurance industry.

“Agents continue to enable the fundamental role in enhancing customer relationships and building sustainable businesses.  Given their importance as a distribution channel, we continue to push for revision of their taxation regimes in consultation with IRA and URA.”

Jonan Kisakye, UIA Chief Executive Officer noted that Initiatives such as these are a true unification sign which not only helps the association bond but also enables them to have a better understanding of how the industry is performing.

According to a 2022 IRA market report, General insurance grew by 22% from 736Bn to 898bn while Life Insurance grew by 26% from 397Bn to 501bn giving an overall estimated growth of 21% for the industry.

The Association is so far committed to ensuring the presence of an environment which will allow for the further development of both the Life and Non- Life markets.

These among others include creating multisector engagement platforms for life insurance providers levering on synergies that can drive down costs for banks and other platforms in terms of premium deductions for dedicated policy holders.

ICEA Lion’s Bob Tayebwa the overall winner commended the association for choosing to celebrate and recognize the tremendous job they do as agents across the country.