Importers to insure imports, domestically

          

IMPORTERS of goods, clearing agents, insurance agents, insurance brokers and companies will now be required to buy insurance policies to local insurance companies for all imported goods in the country, thanks to the government’s newly launched digital platform portal.

Buying insurance policy means the insurance company takes more risk, so that the policy may be more expensive than the one which gives you less cover, because it has more exclusions.

The new portal was put in place by the Tanzania Insurance Regulatory Authority (TIRA) in collaboration with Insurance Institute of Tanzania (IIT), following a requirement by the amendment of article 133 of the Insurance Act of 2009, according to TIRA Commission of Insurance, Dr Baghayo Saqware.

He was speaking at the mid-year meeting of the insurance stakeholders who convened in Dar es Salaam to discuss the bottlenecks facing the insurance sector and provide solutions to the various challenges. “

The Tanzania Imports Insurance Portal (TIIP) is now active and available for use by all importers, clearing agents, insurance agents, insurance brokers and companies,’’ he said. According to Mr Saqware, TIIP is a one stop insurance transaction platform for all imports and that effective January 2018,

all imports into Tanzania whether by road, rail, sea or air must be insured by Tanzanian registered companies. He said TRA will require proof of purchase of Tanzanian marine insurance prior to issuance of import clearance adding that all underwriters are required to upload data of all cargo-related insurance transactions on TIIP website (www. tiip.co.tz).

Initially, before effecting the new legislation, he said the country was losing up to 84bn/- according to a survey that was conducted in 2016, but for the last three months since TIIP became active,

the government collected up to 409m/-. The TIRA Commissioner added that the TIIP Portal was working well and transacting business. “There is already a substantial increase in Premiums which were previously being sent abroad and there is equally a variance between the projected premiums and actual premiums,’’ he said.

According to the legislation Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) Customs is the enforcement agency at Points of entry into Tanzania. TRA Customs needs to effectively enforce by insisting on a TIIP Marine Cargo Insurance Certificate as a pre-condition to clearance of import goods.

However, according to Mr Saqware there was a need to integrate TIIP with TRA’s System to enable TRA Customs Officers to confirm the authenticity of MCI Certificates presented by importers during the Clearing Process.