An Assessment of the Adoption and Usage of E-Commerce by Insurance Firms in Zambia

Abstract

The last decade has seen a significant impact of digital transformation on the insurance industry as regards the creation of value for customers and sustaining superior performance and competitive advantage. Substantial future influences of e-commerce are also anticipated on product design, product delivery and coverage packaging. In advanced markets, insurance companies are starting to provide a broad range of online services through novel technologies such as Insurtech. In Zambia, insurance firms are augmenting their delivery channels with e-commerce by increasing their web presence. In this study, we investigate the current status of e-commerce adoption and usage by Zambian insurers. The study sphere and test sample are the existing websites of the life and general insurance companies. The methodology consists of analyzing the presence of selected website features by indexing them based on their role as service provision channels. The second part of the assessment evaluates the true usage of these features by the insurers through feedback questionnaires. Using the UN-ASPA e-adoption framework our findings show that the Zambian insurers are still largely in the early e-adoption and usage stages and have not yet developed a completely integrated web presence. This study is of present-day importance especially now that e-insurance is being explored as one of the solutions to insurance wider availability, transparency, financial inclusion and multi-channel marketing in Zambia.