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Seven insurance firms face IRA fines for reporting breaches
Commissioner of Insurance and The Insurance Regulatory Authority CEO Godfrey Kiptum speaks at a past event held at JW Marriott Hotel in Nairobi on November 26, 2025.
Seven insurance firms are facing regulatory fines for missing deadlines to submit records of their business performance, including premiums received and claims paid out.
Disclosures by the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) show Definite Assurance Company, The Kenyan Alliance Insurance Company Limited (General and Life), The Monarch Insurance Company Limited (General and Life), Star Discover Micro Insurance Limited and Birdview Micro Insurance did not file the returns for the quarter ended March 2026 with the regulator.
The latest disclosures highlight persistent compliance gaps in the sector, where 33 insurers were fined Sh80.21 million in 2024 for breaches, including missed reporting deadlines for either quarterly or annual financial returns.
Firms that fail to meet reporting obligations receive fines in line with the Insurance Act, which requires insurers to submit unaudited financial statements, including revenue accounts, balance sheets, and profit and loss statements, within 30 days after the end of each quarter.
Failure to submit the quarterly statements means the IRA is in the dark about how much premiums these insurers collected, how many claims they received from customers and the value they paid out.
The IRA is also not able to tell the stability of their businesses in terms of the assets they have, the liabilities and the capital positions.
The periodic returns detailing insurers’ financial position, claims experience, and risk exposures enable the regulator to monitor solvency and consumer protection risks for the industry.
Timely and accurate reporting is central to the IRA’s risk-based supervision framework, which relies on data to identify weak institutions and emerging risks.
“An insurer that fails to comply shall be liable to a penalty of Sh200,000 and a further penalty of Sh10,000 for each day after the expiry of the prescribed period during which the insurer remains non-compliant,” the Act states.
The Insurance Act further says any insurer that fails to pay any levy or penalty by the due date risks a fine of up to Sh500,000 and a further Sh1,000 for every day the breach continues.
The Business Daily did not get an immediate comment from the seven firms.
The deadline for submitting the January to March quarterly performance ended in April 2026.
The breaches on financial disclosures are part of a broader pattern of non-compliance that has continued to dog the industry.
In recent years, IRA has imposed fines and, in some cases, taken administrative measures against firms that fail to comply with the Insurance Act.
The persistence of reporting breaches comes against a backdrop of mixed performance in the insurance sector. While the industry has posted growth in premium income and investment portfolios, compliance issues continue to cast a shadow over its governance standards.
Data from the first quarter report shows the industry’s gross written premium, excluding the numbers of the seven that failed to submit returns, rose by 19.9 percent to Sh155.33 billion from Sh129.51 billion in the previous quarter last year.
The increased premiums came in a period claims and policyholders’ benefits rose by five percent to Sh32.44 billion from Sh30.91 billion, lifting the sector’s net profit to Sh7.05 billion from Sh4.92 billion.
The industry remains relatively concentrated, with the top seven general insurers controlling 53.1 percent of the market share.
The concentration is even higher in life insurance, where seven of the 22 life insurance firms control 73.1 percent of the market.
The IRA has, in recent quarters, stepped up surveillance and enforcement, including automated reporting systems.
The authority has also been pushing insurers to strengthen internal controls and governance frameworks to improve compliance.
Despite these efforts, the recurrence of reporting breaches among some insurers points to underlying structural challenges such as weak compliance cultures, outdated systems and resource constraints.
While missed reporting deadlines do not directly mean a firm is struggling, persistent non-compliance is often an early warning sign of operational or financial strain that can escalate if left unaddressed.
For instance, firms such as Trident Insurance, Kuscco Mutual Assurance and Corporate Insurance Company, which were placed under statutory management in March this year, had previously faced repeated fines for reporting breaches.
Other insurers such as Invesco Assurance, United Insurance, Resolution Insurance, Standard Assurance, Xplico Insurance, Concord Insurance and BlueShield Insurance also exhibited gaps in financial reporting before falling into statutory management.
