The Effectiveness Or Otherwise Of The Motor Vehicle Third Party Risks Act In Regulating The Insurance Sector Of Kenya

The fundamental commercial concept of insurance has been amidst the African continent for quite a long time. Members of a cmrnnnnity pooled together resources to create a "social insurance fund". The concept of premiums ranged from material to moral support or other payments in kind. It was from these collected funds that payment was made from. Those who seemed to be less nnfminnate in the society and who were exposed to perils qualified from the fund, 1 "the emergence of cmrnnercial insurance in Kenya is viewed to be from the historical emancipation of Kenya as a nation. This is seen right fi·om the conquest of Kenya as a British colony, settlers initiated various economic activities, particularly fanning, and extraction of agricultural products. However the Idea of substantial investments necessitated sound needed some fonn protection against several risk exposures. The colonial masters thus saw a mouthwateJing opportunity to venture into this and responded by establishing agency offices to service the colony's insurance needs. Their efforts yielded some positive results and in tum the colony justified expansion of these agencies to branch networks with more autonomy, and expertise to service the growing insurance needs. By the time of independence2 most branches had been transfonned to fully-fledged insurance companies and it is since this period Kenyan insurance industry has flourished. 3 By 2002 Kenya had almost 41 registered insurers, 15 transacting general business, 2 transacting life business while 24 were composite insurers transacting both life and general insurances