Assessment of the factors contributing to low uptake of insurance among market vendors: a case study of Rubaga division – Kampala

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the factors contributing to the low uptake of insurance services a case study of market vendors of Rubaga division. The need for insurance services is important for low-income groups as they are more vulnerable to ill-health or death, unexpected expenses, and natural disasters. Consequently, there is need to reach to this group and mitigate their level of risk since when it occurs, it is bound to drive them to deeper level of poverty. To bridge this need, insurance firms have developed products that target this section of the market. The study adopted use of primary data, which was collected using Questionnaire approach, data was put in excel for cleaning and imported to Stata 15 .0 for analysis. Findings of the study show that Individual’s level of Startup capital is the crucial factor facilitating uptake of insurance among this cohort. Other individual demographic, economic and social characteristics to include Age, Gender, Marital status, Business ownership and Source of Business startup capital were found to have an insignificant relationship with Uptake of insurance given the data used. The study also established that respondents that had contracts had concerns of them paying continuously their premiums and not having any claim situation something they call a waste of money. The study recommends that further study should be carried out on a large sample cohort of the same kind, this time segmenting it to provide insights on insurance needs of these groups. Microinsurance with appropriate flexible distribution channels is a recommended opportunity to reach the unserved and underserved groups majorly within the informal sector