NIC market share falls to 35 per cent


The National Insurance Corporation’s (NIC) market share has gone down by between six and 35 per cent from 100 per cent in 1998, the firm’s Managing Director, Mr Justine Mwandu, has said.

Mr Justine Mwandu

“In life insurance services, our company’s market share has dropped from 100 per cent in 1998 to 35 per cent now. In other forms of insurance our market share has gone down to six per cent from 100 per cent in 1998,” he said.

Mr Mwandu made the revelation in Dar es Salaam over the weekend at the closure of a workshop attended by NIC assistant accountants and insurance officers from the firm’s branches countrywide, which had been convened to deliberate on ways of reviving the company.

“The long process of privatising NIC, which started in 1998 and came up with the Insurance Act which allowed private actors in the insurance sector, had seriously weakened the company,” he said.

He added that the company, which had formerly enjoyed a monopoly in the insurance business, lost much of its clientele during the long-drawn privatization process because it scared away many customers.


“The privatisation process, which was subsequently shelved by the government in 2009, left the company with a 29bn/- backlog in insurance claims which have, fortunately, since been settled. We were forced to retrench all the 600 employees, but we have now recruited 250 new staff,” he said.

Mr Mwandu noted that the majority of the recruited workers were new in the company and the workshop aimed at acclimatizing them to the company and giving them skills on marketing its services.

“The government’s plan is to revive the company first before thinking of divesting it by selling its shares. It was agreed that selling the company now in its present financial position would not give a fair deal to the government, which is the sole owner,” he said.

He added that NIC still had a lot of assets compared to other insurance companies operating in the country, making it a force to reckon with in the days ahead. “The workshop has resolved that every one of us is going to play a marketing role so the company can regain its former glory, and I believe we shall achieve this in the near future,” he said.

By ABDULWAKIL SAIBOKO, Tanzania Daily News

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