In Uganda, where insurance penetration remains below 1% of GDP, at 0.883% in 2024, according to the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA), the sector sits in a paradox.
On paper, it is growing: gross written premiums rose by more than 10% in 2024 to UGX 1.76 trillion, and the number of licensed players increased to 143 companies in 2025.
Mergers among major insurers, such as the April tie-up between Sanlam General and Jubilee Allianz, dominate headlines.
The regulator has also tightened oversight, enforcing a 200% capital adequacy ratio that has compelled firms to strengthen their balance sheets.
Yet for the average Ugandan, insurance remains distant, abstract, and mistrusted.
A CEO’s rise and a company’s reinvention
Joseph Nsubuga, an actuary turned executive, is trying to change that.
He now heads Mirai General Insurance Company, formerly First Insurance Company (FICO).
His own journey, from intern to CEO in under two decades, mirrors the company’s transformation: swift, improbable, and rooted in resilience.
“There was no magic,” he says. “If you serve well, rising becomes normal, not miraculous.”
Mirai’s roots stretch back to 1992, when it began as Greenland Insurance, part of the once-dominant Greenland Bank.
When the bank collapsed in 2001, the insurer rebranded as FICO and pulled in fresh capital from Zimbabwe’s Nicoz Diamond.
By the mid-2010s, ownership shifted again to local investors, including Victoria Motors and Nicoz Uganda.
For years, FICO remained a modest mid-tier insurer. That changed in late 2024, when Pride Global Holdings injected over UGX 6 billion in new capital, prompting a rebrand to Mirai, a Japanese word meaning “future.”
“The turning point was when we received more capital,” Nsubuga recalls. “We could not only meet but surpass the regulator’s capital adequacy ratio. That gave us stability and credibility.”
The culture problem
Uganda’s insurance industry suffers from a deep cultural hurdle: for many, assets are only real if they can be seen or touched.
“Very few people want to invest in insurance,” Nsubuga says. “Africans want what they can touch. Land feels safer than an insurance policy.”
This mindset affects both households and investors. While foreign investors see opportunity, local investors often hesitate to back a product they cannot physically verify.
The result: low penetration, at or below 1% of GDP, despite the sector employing thousands and managing billions in assets.
Government as the missing link
Regulation has brought stability, but not widespread adoption. Nsubuga argues that the government itself must lead by example.
“We insure properties for many people, but government doesn’t insure its own assets,” he says. “If government insured its vehicles, buildings, and properties, people would follow.”
Indeed, government’s asset portfolio, from land and offices to vehicles and infrastructure, remains largely uninsured.
Both the Auditor General and IRA have previously noted that non-financial public assets are still missing from official accounts, leaving billions of shillings’ worth of exposure off insurers’ books.
Technology as the next disruption
If government lags, technology may move faster. Just as mobile money transformed banking, insurtech could revolutionize access, distribution, and product design in Uganda.
A 2024 study in the Journal of Risk and Financial Management found that Ugandans are more likely to adopt insurance when it is offered through mobile or digital platforms.
“You can’t run away from technology,” says Nsubuga. “The new generation is fast, savvy, and impatient. You have to find them where they are.”
How Stanbic Bank CFO Ronald Makata Blends Governance, Technology and Human Leadership to Drive PerformanceAcross the region, digital platforms and micro-insurance models are proving effective.
Turaco, a pan-African insurtech operating in Uganda, became the first to obtain an underwriting licence in 2023, offering simple policies from as low as UGX1,000 through Airtel Money and other partners.
It now serves 1.3 million people across Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria.
Even in agriculture, smartphone-based systems now allow farmers to file claims after hailstorms, directly linking them to insurers – the result: faster claims, lower costs, and expanded reach.
“Fintechs are partners, not competitors,” Nsubuga says. “They can preach the gospel of insurance where we cannot.”
Risk-sharing at scale
Insurance is about spreading risk, and in Uganda, that principle is being institutionalized through consortia and pools.
Mirai participates in two key ones: The Insurance Consortium for Oil and Gas Uganda, which allows local carriers to underwrite multi-billion-shilling oil projects. The consortium has mobilized UGX200 billion in premiums since inception, with UGX6.5 billion written in this year alone.
The other is the Agro Insurance Consortium, which delivers the Uganda Agriculture Insurance Scheme, now covering more than 687,000 farmers and paying out UGX33.4 billion in claims.
Pooling is spreading into other areas, including the Local Marine Insurance Platform, which made local cover mandatory for all imports from February 2025, keeping premiums within Uganda’s economy.
Experts now urge the replication of the oil-and-gas model for renewable energy projects, where insurance will be key to financing the green transition.
“In the next five years, we need to partner with government and enter priority sectors — agriculture, minerals, technology,” says Nsubuga. “That’s where the money will go, and that’s where insurers must be.”
The merger wave and innovation push
Consolidation is reshaping the market. The Sanlam–Jubilee Allianz merger alone has redrawn Uganda’s general-insurance map. The top five players now control nearly 60% of the market share.
“People are loyal to brands,” Nsubuga notes. “When names change, some feel left behind. The challenge for smaller insurers isn’t survival but adaptation, innovating products, tailoring services, and holding ground.”
For him, product innovation is the real frontier. Microinsurance and community-based models, where small premiums from large groups form sustainable pools, could unlock mass adoption.
“Insurance is about large numbers,” he says. “Even UGX 500 per person, multiplied by thousands, creates real protection.”
Vision and ethos
At Mirai, the new ethos is simple: customer first. “The customer is at the center of all our operations,” says Nsubuga. He frames insurance as a matter of peace of mind:
“A businessman importing a container without insurance barely sleeps. With insurance, even when something goes wrong, he has peace of mind. That peace, and financial shock absorption, is priceless.”
Looking ahead, Mirai’s ambition is not just regional expansion but redefining perception.
“In ten years, when someone thinks of insurance, they should think of Mirai,” Nsubuga says.
Uganda’s economy is changing; oil, agro-industrialization, climate risks, and a digital generation are reshaping it. Insurance should be central to this story, but remains peripheral.
Mirai’s evolution, from Greenland to FICO to Mirai, is a case study in survival and reinvention.
Whether that is enough to crack Uganda’s cultural resistance to insurance remains to be seen.
But if Nsubuga is right, the quiet cousin of banking may yet step into the spotlight, armed with capital, technology, and a renewed promise of trust.
