Assessment of Students’ Knowledge, Attitude and Practices towards Uptake of Life Insurance in Uganda: A Case Study of Makerere University

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find out the relationship that exists between knowledge, attitudes and practices with uptake of life insurance. The researcher used simple random sampling to select samples of 200 respondents. A structured questionnaire consisting of demographic and economic characteristics, knowledge, attitudes, practices and recommendations was used to obtain primary data and analysis done using STATA. Descriptive analysis was done using frequency tables, cross tabulations with chi-square tests was used to study the relationship between the independent and dependent variables as well as multivariate analysis. The findings revealed that age with p-value of (0.004), gender p-value (0.002) and marital status p-value (0.025) are significant demographic factors. All socio-economic factors, that is; occupation, income level, and family size were found insignificant to uptake of life insurance since their p-values are greater than 0.05, that is, (0.494, 0.586, 0.329) respectively. Furthermore, the study established significant relationship between knowledge, attitude, practices and uptake of life insurance. All knowledge variables, that is, do you keep up with current affairs (0.049), how often do you get current affairs updates (0.019), how do you get updates (0.044), have you heard of life insurance (0.015), how did you get information about life insurance (0.001), what do you think of life insurance (0.043), if you were to buy insurance, would you opt for life insurance (0.000) are significant apart from whether one knows of any life insurance companies in Uganda (0.068). Under attitude, results show that poor customer service (0.006), poor agents’ integrity (0.002) and claims settlement being a wanting factor (0.039) are significant. All variables under practices had p-value of (0.000) thus significant (the type of insurance one has, period spent with the policy, whether they have life insurance with only one company, what urged them to insure with that company, their preferred way of paying premiums, whether they know all details of the policy and whether they are satisfied with services being offered). Lack of awareness, negative attitude or public mistrust, and poor practices of life insurance firms affect uptake of life insurance. The study concludes that socio-demographic factors, knowledge, attitudes and practices influence the public in taking up life insurance. The study recommends sensitization of the public to create awareness, improve on services, reduce premiums and settle claims earlier to improve attitudes and practices of the insurable public.