Technological preferences by insurance companies in the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown 2020-2021 : a case study of insurance companies around Central Kampala

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the technological preference by insurance companies during the COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown. Primary data was obtained from respondents who were working in different insurance companies. This quantitative cross-sectional study involved distribution of 1090 sets of questionnaires to respondents who were employed in different insurance companies around central Kampala. Univariate analysis, Bivariate analysis and Binary logistic regression were performed on the variables in the study using STATA. The claims management process was not easy for most insurance companies as reflected by respondents (72.63%) with the remainder saying that it was easy for them (27.37%). (73.68%) of the respondents pointed out that selling policies during the lockdown was not like before while a small portion (26.32%) of respondents insisted that selling policies remained the same during lockdown as before. More than a half of the respondents (65.26%) accepted that minimizing face to face meetings was a threat to the company whereas the remaining (34.74%) said it did not cause any threat to the company. Majority of the respondents (74.74%) accepted that their insurance companies reduced the number of workers during the lockdown and the remaining percentage (25.26%) said their companies didn’t reduce the number of employees. Most of the respondents (71.58%) believed in the restrictions of movement during the lockdown and the remaining portion (28.42%) disagreed with the restrictions of movement during the lockdown. More than half of the respondents (55.79%) had good experience working from home with the remainder (44.21) being those who had a bad experience working from home. In the bivariate stage of analysis, it was found out that reducing the number of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic had no influence to the preference for technology. Streamlining the claims management process during COVID 19 easy for insurance companies, selling policies the same during lockdown as before by insurance companies, minimizing face to face meetings being a threat to the company, believing in the restrictions of movements during the lockdown, experience of working from home during the lockdown had an influence to the preference of technology by insurance companies during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. The significant variables were later taken to the third stage of analysis. In multivariate analysis, experience working from home during the lockdown represented by a p-value which is less than the level of significance emerged as the only significant variable. The odds ratio for this variable indicated that an individual who had a good experience working from home is four times more likely to have a high preference for technology than an individual who had a bad experience working from home. People who had a good experience of working from home during the Covid-19 lockdown had higher preference for technology.