Allianz Africa Regional CEO Coenraad Vrolijk on September 29, 2020 in Nairobi. PHOTO | NMG Global general insurer Allianz SE on May 4, 2021 completed the acquisition of majority stake in Jubilee General Insurance #ticker:JUB.
Regional CEO for Allianz in Africa Coenraad Vrolijk spoke with the Business Daily on why the German insurer chose Kenya and how the deal with Jubilee will impact products and customer service going.
Allianz has had a greenfield licence in Kenya since 2014 and the business was growing. Why did you opt for a partnership with Jubilee Insurance?
We are a large multinational and it is quite difficult to do greenfield given the so many rules and constraints that are designed for large businesses and not start-ups.
We applied for the greenfield licence in 2014 but it was granted towards the end of 2016 and commenced operations as Allianz Kenya in 2017.
Our experience around the world is that it works much faster and better when we work with a great local partner who has been there for a long time and understands the market than doing everything from scratch.
You exited some markets in West Africa and then the jubilee deal happened. Why Kenya?
Allianz Africa has aspiration to be one of the leading insurers on the continent over a reasonable period of time and Kenya is a really important part of this.
It is difficult to say you are a pan-African insurance company if you are not in Kenya and East Africa.
The talks with Jubilee started in 2016 and its conclusion and launch of Jubilee Allianz General coincided with Covid-19 disruption. How has this impacted the take-off?
We are not a private equity company. We are not doing this with a three- to five-year period then get out.We are doing this because we believe this is a business we want to be part of indefinitely. If you have an indefinite time horizon, there is no wrong time to enter.Today is always almost better than tomorrow.We want to build a business. We are not here to strip the business apart, lay off people and exit. Globally, Allianz is big on general insurance. What key things do you intend to do differently having assessed the market via Allianz Kenya? Globally, we try to simplify everything so that the service is identical everywhere. We have done this across all our west African markets and we want to do […]
