THE Insurance Institute of Zimbabwe (IIZ) is banking on collaborations as it seeks to grow the multi-million-dollar insurance industry.
IIZ’s push to grow the insurance industry comes as the sector is facing headwinds, forcing it to be innovative and keep abreast of the times.
The just-ended IIZ Winter School held last week in Nyanga underscored the need for the insurance industry to collaborate both within itself as well as with other industries.
IIZ general manager Davison Choeni told NewsDay Business that the institution was in talks with various players in the economy on how they could collaborate to drive economic growth.
“I think we have created excitement already. You remember, we were just rewarded. We are getting some awards. But, there is the Zimbabwe network for CEOs [chief executive officers] that have recognised us a month ago on the programmes that we are doing and we believe we need to continue in that trajectory,” he said.
“And one of the things that we will be doing is to keep on soliciting and looking out for opportunities in terms of collaborations. During this conference, there was talk of the launch of an Artificial Intelligence Institute of Zimbabwe. We want to get into that space and see how we can benefit our people. So, we are looking at collaboration.”
Choeni said the institute would also continue on the same trajectory of identifying relevant topics that spoke to the insurance industry’s skills development.
He added that there were ongoing discussions with the Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (Maz) for a possible collaboration.
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“We need to work together with institutions like Maz. That way, we believe the issue that we spoke to, about the timeous claim payments will be solved. This is because our people will then understand the importance of being customer-centric,” he said.
“And once we are customer-centric, it means issues of claim settlement delay will be addressed because everybody will be geared towards satisfying the customer.”
The Winter School was held under the theme, Disruption and Opportunity — Equipping the Zimbabwean Insurance Industry for the Future.
Choeni said the institute was looking beyond the winter school and to do post-event engagement to ensure that organisations benefited from these events.
“The powerful lessons that came from these sessions, we want to see them on the ground. We want to see them being operationalised or executed. So, we are thinking in our minds that maybe we should also have another forum beyond just the winter school to then say, specifically in organisation A, you send people to the winter school,” he said.
“Are you seeing the results? If there is a need for 'end angling', we can call back the same guys, because the essence is skills development. We call the guys of this world to say, go and assist, move into that space and assist so that we then see the things coming up. There were some excellent suggestions that were coming from the congregations.”
Choeni said the idea of creating another platform for learning should be considered.
“We have spoken about artificial intelligence. We have spoken about the learning machines. We have spoken so much about these things. But, it mustn’t just be talk and it ends there,” the executive said.
