Kenya’s insurance sector continues to face hurdles as firms struggle to meet financial reporting deadlines due to outdated systems and incomplete historical data.
Since the introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 17 on January 1, 2023, insurers have encountered one of the most extensive changes in accounting rules in decades. Nearly two years into implementation, delays in reporting remain widespread.
The Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) says the standard requires insurers to provide highly detailed reporting, which many companies are ill-equipped to handle. According to the latest AKI report, historical records were inconsistent, missing, or dispersed across legacy IT systems incapable of supporting the new accounting requirements.
These challenges caused many firms to miss the 2024 financial reporting deadline, with issues extending into this year as companies work to update systems and fill data gaps.
Insurance companies are required to publish statements within four months after the financial year ends, but large firms such as Jubilee Holdings, CIC Insurance Group, and Kenya Reinsurance Corporation had to request extensions to comply with IFRS 17 rules.
The Insurance Regulatory Authority has so far released industry data only up to June 2025, leaving many insurers behind schedule.
“Post-implementation of IFRS 17, insurers encountered significant challenges related to data granularity and availability. The requirement to group contracts by portfolio, issue year, and profitability level meant that insurers had to access and report at a far more detailed level than previously required,” AKI states in its report.
AKI adds that insurers had to carry out “extensive data remediation” while investing heavily in upgraded IT infrastructure and governance frameworks. Hundreds of millions of shillings were spent on new actuarial engines, data tools, cloud storage, and integration software, putting smaller insurers under financial strain.
“Many insurers experienced misalignments in data definitions, assumptions and timing of inputs across departments. This lack of synchronization led to reconciliation issues, delayed reporting cycles, and inconsistencies in financial outputs,” the report notes.
Auditors also raised concerns about traceability, as some companies could not link figures to original policy-level data. Firms were forced to manually resolve discrepancies, rerun models, and rebuild data pipelines to meet audit requirements.
AKI further highlights difficulties in comparing expected and actual cash flows, a critical IFRS 17 requirement, caused by timing differences, system limits, and gaps in historical assumptions.
Weak documentation and poor system integration made it hard to trace reported figures back to original policy-level data and assumptions.
