Bancassurance Is Changing Everything, Pearl Bank’s, Frank Kalinzi Alludes

Bancassurance Is Changing Everything, Pearl Bank’s, Frank Kalinzi Alludes

By Frank Kalinzi

For decades, insurance in Uganda was something people bought reluctantly — usually only when forced. A motor policy to satisfy the law. A fire cover attached to a bank loan. A workers compensation policy demanded by a contract. Insurance felt less like financial planning and more like a tax you paid to keep someone off your back.

That’s starting to change.

Bancassurance — selling insurance through banks — is quietly reshaping how ordinary Ugandans access and think about coverage. It might turn out to be one of the most important shifts in Uganda’s financial sector in years.

Uganda’s insurance penetration is still painfully low, below one percent of GDP, compared to Kenya where it has crossed three percent. But beneath those discouraging numbers, something real is happening. Insurance is moving from the fringes of financial life toward the center of everyday banking.

The old model was simple and deeply flawed. Agents and brokers moved from office to office pitching policies. The problem? Insurance products are abstract, complex and built around future risks most people would rather not think about. Selling them requires trust, time and constant follow-up — things traditional distribution could never quite deliver at scale.

Banks already had everything insurers lacked: trusted relationships, branch networks across the country, transaction data and growing digital platforms. That combination is proving powerful.

When someone walks into a bank today, they’re no longer just opening an account or applying for a loan. Increasingly, they’re being introduced to medical insurance, funeral cover, mortgage protection, savings-linked life products and agricultural cover — all embedded into a relationship they already have.

That’s the genius of the bancassurance model.

Rather than asking Ugandans to separately decide to “buy insurance,” banks are weaving it into financial activities people already understand. A farmer seeking an agriculture loan receives crop protection alongside it. A salaried worker applying for credit is offered hospital cash insurance. A parent saving for school fees is introduced to an endowment product that bundles savings, investment and life cover together.

Insurance stops being a standalone product and becomes part of how someone manages their financial life.

Since Uganda formally allowed banks to distribute insurance in 2017, gross written premiums have steadily grown, with bank channels driving a meaningful share of that expansion. The numbers are starting to tell a compelling story from the banks’ side too. At Pearl Bank, bancassurance commission revenues grew from a few hundred million shillings just a few years ago to around Shs2.2 billion in 2025 alone — making it one of the fastest-growing streams of non-funded income in the bank.

What makes that figure particularly attractive is its quality. Unlike lending income, it carries no provisioning pressures. It’s clean fee revenue that goes straight to the bottom line while simultaneously improving customer protection. Banks are also finding that bancassurance helps manage credit risk directly — insurance claims linked to loan protection policies have settled billions of shillings worth of customer obligations that would otherwise have turned into non-performing assets. In short, bancassurance isn’t just a sales side business. It’s becoming both a profit center and a risk management tool.

Beyond the balance sheet, banks are taking insurance into places traditional insurers never reached. Uganda’s insurance sector historically clustered around Kampala while most of the economically active population lived elsewhere. The farmer in Kapchorwa, the cattle keeper in Kiruhura, the trader in Soroti — these people arguably needed insurance more urgently than many urban professionals, yet the industry never quite got to them.

Banks are closing that gap. A branch in Moroto can now facilitate motor insurance. A farmer in Masaka can access agricultural cover locally. Digital platforms are making remote policy quotations possible. Mobile wallets are opening up micro-insurance products delivered entirely by phone.

That last part matters enormously. Uganda’s income levels can’t sustain a model built mainly for people who can afford multi-million-shilling annual premiums. The future belongs to smaller, targeted products built around what ordinary Ugandans actually earn. A boda boda rider probably can’t afford comprehensive medical insurance, but he might afford hospital cash cover bundled into his regular banking transactions. A village savings group member may never buy a traditional life policy but could participate in low-cost funeral protection through mobile money.

There’s also the question of trust. Uganda’s insurance industry has long struggled with its reputation — too many people grew up hearing stories about disputed claims, confusing policy language and insurers who found reasons not to pay when it mattered most. Banks are now using their credibility to bridge that gap. A customer might hesitate to trust an insurance salesperson they’ve never met, but they’re far more likely to trust the institution that has held their salary account for years.

The wider economic stakes are real. Countries don’t become prosperous simply by creating wealth — they become prosperous by protecting it. Insurance is what lets farmers invest more confidently, businesses take bigger risks and families save without the terror that one medical emergency will wipe out everything they’ve built.

Uganda is a long way from where it needs to be. Financial literacy is still low. Insurance jargon still puts people off. Claims handling still needs serious work.

But the direction is clear. Banks are evolving from places you borrow and save into something more complete — platforms where Ugandans can manage their entire financial lives under one roof. Bancassurance isn’t just a new distribution channel. It’s a different vision of what financial services can be.