CHEF Justice, Prof Ibrahim Juma, has advised for the possibility of making amendments to laws governing the Tanzania Insurance Regulatory Authority (TIRA) to enable settlement of insurance disputes through arbitration first before seeking court's interventions.
Prof Juma gave the advice recently when he met with senior leaders of TIRA who visited him at his office at the Court of Appeal building in Dar es Salaam for courtesy call, promoting and developing better relations and cooperation between the Authority and the Judiciary.
"This is the time for you to review your laws, especially the sections that say there is a balance of following the procedures but people still rush to court. Since 2020, a new arbitration law has been enacted with the aim of reducing the number of cases in the ordinary courts," he said.
The Chief Justice pointed out that there are many rules in ordinary courts that some people misuse them either to delay or to find some trickery issues, which in today's legal arbitration allows the process of settling claims to take place.
During the meeting, TIRA leaders led by the Commissioner of Insurance, Dr Baghayo Saqware, submitted various requests, including the possibility of the judiciary to fast track hearing of insurance matters.
Presenting his report before the Chief Justice, Dr Saqware said that so far the authority has registered 33 companies, 91 brokers, 958 agents, 45 trustees and loss assessors and two inspectors.
He said that for the year 2021, insurance companies conducted business amounting to 991.5bn/-, which is an increase of more than 10.6 per cent compared to the year 2020, where it was 824.35bn/-.
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The commissioner said that the insurance sector in general was growing rapidly and in order to develop it further, the sector must solve the challenges it faces including preparing and implementing the National Insurance Policy (NIP) and increasing the capital of insurance companies.
According to Dr Saqware, the move would enable TIRA to be able to take on and support the rising and expanding industry.
He mentioned other challenges that need to be eliminated as fraud and reduce the increase in civil cases. He said data shows about the existence of 118 civil cases in various courts in the country worth more than 90bn/- that have been pending for a long time.
Other leaders who accompanied Dr Saqware included Legal Director Emily Kiria, Acting Manager of Risk Management and Quality, Dr Emanuel Lupilya and Communications Manager Eliezer Rweikiza.
They were accompanied by the Chairman of the Union of Insurance Companies, Mr Khamis Suleiman.
