SONARWA (Societe Nouvelle D'assurance du Rwanda) insurance company Ltd, looks to improve its service and ensure pluralism of innovative products to reach its customer satisfaction.
While celebrating the New Year with their corporate customers on Thursday, the insurer’s sister companies, SONARWA General Assurance and SONARWA Life, pledged to extend and improve services outreach to their clients to maintain its dominance on the country’s insurance business industry.
"We used to be a monopoly but we are no longer a monopoly and we’ve got used to it and we are actually enjoying it because it pushes us to do better to innovate. To that matter this year, we are looking forward to bringing more innovations that are going to facilitate the clients’ transactions with SONARWA Life and we are sure that the efficiencies that it will bring will satisfy our services,” said Aurore Mimosa Munyangaju, the CEO of SONARWA Life.
43 years on since its establishment, SONARWA has maintained its position as a leader on the Rwandan insurance market despite the level of other insurance firms to be market competitors.
The insurance company opened offices and branches in 21 service locations in the country and it has established a commercial network of over 370 commercial agents trained to be insurance experts who try to make the outreach be positive to the customers.
Richard Tusabe, the Director General of Rwanda Social Security Board, said all the fortunes made by the sister companies would not have been achieved without their clients and called for better service delivery and innovations to win live a competitive insurance business.
"There is no doubt that SONARWA is the pioneer in Rwanda’s insurance industry. However, owes these performances to its customers where some clients have been with the insurer for the past 43 years, which SONARWA should not take for granted and there is no doubt that the competition has made SONARWA scale up in improving the value propositions and products offering,” he said
In 2017, SONARWA General was capitalized and paid insurance claims worth Rwf 4 billion on accidents but that did not stop the insurer make a net profit of Rwf 178 million.
The insurer will pay Rwf 800 million to clear accident claims for 2018 Tony Twahirwa, the Chief Executive of SONARWA General, said they are looking to doing even better to maintain better service delivery.
"We now have a good relationship with our clients and we are looking forward to improving the relationship. We have not done the general assessment on how the company performed this past year but given the profit we made in 2017 we believe 2018 has been the same, too. We would struggle to make profits for a long time but in 2017, we made a net profit of Rwf 178 million and we believe that this year has been even better.
"We are happy that we provided good service to our clients’ satisfaction while we also paid insurance for the majority all accident claims we were supposed to cover and we are confident that this year will be even better as we are looking to maintain the track to clear all claims to satisfy our customers,” he added.
SONARWA was created by the Government of Rwanda in 1975 with prime mission of serving insurance products and playing an active role in saving mobilization among Rwandan citizens.
But in 2011, the insurance company came off by two insurance companies, namely SONARWA General Assurance and SONARWA Life Insurance, by convention to comply with the regulator (Central Bank)’s directives.
General insurance covers non-life category involving motor insurance, estate comprehensive insurance, lease care policy, estate fire insurance scheme, personal liability insurance, product liability insurance, fidelity guarantee insurance, workman compensation cover, money insurance, personal or group accident, professional indemnity, goods-in-transit insurance and theft, burglary and fire insurance.
Meanwhile, SONARWA Life Assurance handles life-related cover like loan protection assurance, family protection plan, pension plans, education endowment plan and provident fund or gratuity schemes.
In 2016, the Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB) invested in both companies for the purpose of improving the stability and satisfy the needs of its clients.
The two sister companies came up with new missions, new status and new commitments to take control as the leading company in Rwanda’s insurance industry.
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