The process of insurance education and awareness of its use has intensified after yesterday NMB Bank relaunched Umebima’s campaign in Zanzibar to raise awareness of this essential service in life and nation-building.
Umebima’s third season and awareness of the insurance services available on the market was officially launched nationally last week in Mbeya.
Targeting ordinary citizens and taking into account the needs of small businesses, yesterday’s activity was held in Darajani Market and attended by many people especially entrepreneurs in the Unguja area.
As the inaugural exercise progressed, many were seen cutting insurance especially that of TZS 10,000/- specifically for machingas and the exercise came to a head after a speech by the chief guest, the Regional Commissioner for Western Region, Mr Idrissa Kitwana Mustafa.
The leader expressed great enthusiasm about the importance of having insurance while praising NMB for its innovations in the Umebima campaign which he said is a good opportunity for development.
“Thanks to the education you are going to provide, Zanzibar is going to change. NMB’s innovation of public insurance education is in line with President Dr Hussein Mwinyi’s vision of improving the business environment which includes property security and life in general,” Mr Mustafa noted,
Furthermore, he said insurance coverage for Zanzibar is now not very high but with NMB’s commitment to educating and encouraging citizens to solve this challenge, he is optimistic his investment will increase.
Earlier, the head of the bank’s Insurance Department, Mr Martine Massawe, said despite its importance for livelihoods and productivity and the abundance of education currently being provided, people’s response to insurance is still low across the country.
Mr Massawe noted that statistics show that only a very few per cent of Tanzanians use insurance services but thanks to NMB’s efforts through Umebima’s campaign, this is now going to become history.
“We as NMB Bank are keen to see this number increase and it reaches at least 50% of Tanzanians using insurance services by 2029/2030,” the banking expert told the regional commissioner.
“And that is the main objective of coming up with this campaign that is going to educate in various ways to ensure that the number of Tanzanians who are insured whether property, health or livelihoods increases. Our next goal is to increase the contribution of this microfinance sector to GDP from less than one per cent now to at least three per cent in 2029/2030,” Mr Massawe added.
In Zanzibar, he said Umebima 2023 will be a month-long exercise and yesterday’s launch of the campaign is the largest ever held in the Islands.
Mr Massawe also told the public that it was because of the recognition of the importance of insurance to Tanzanians, which is why NMB felt it was appropriate to sell insurance coverage of various companies in all its branches to customers and even non-customers.
The Urban District Commissioner, Mr Rashid Simai Msaraka, congratulated NMB on the launch
