AXIAN Bets on Insurance to Deepen Risk Underwriting in Africa

AXIAN Group, a pan-African conglomerate spanning telecommunications, energy, real estate, fintech and financial services, is expanding into insurance underwriting to tap the world’s least covered regions.

The group, which generated $2.75 billion in revenue in 2024, has launched VIA Insurance and VIA Assurance in Madagascar, according to Hassane Muhieddine, chief executive officer of AXIAN’s financial services cluster.

Africa’s insurance penetration was about 3.5% of gross domestic product in 2025, half of the global average, according to AXIAN. In Madagascar, uptake is even more dismal at below 1%, with only 20% of vehicles on third-party liability coverage, even though it is compulsory.

AXIAN already operates Sanko, a brokerage and risk advisory subsidiary on the Indian Ocean island.

“What we lacked was balance-sheet risk retention and in-house underwriting capacity,” Muhieddine said in an interview. “VIA enables us to originate, price and carry risk internally rather than operating solely as a distributor.”

AXIAN operates in 21 African countries including Madagascar, Tanzania, Senegal, Togo and Uganda. It has 42 million mobile subscribers and 23 million mobile-money accounts, providing a captive network for its insurance products.

Bundling Products

Madagascar will serve as VIA’s initial underwriting laboratory, where AXIAN has more than 110 bank branches, thousands of telecom retail outlets and over 50,000 mobile money agents. VIA Insurance will combine an organic build-out in Madagascar with acquisitions or joint ventures in other African markets.

“Our objective is to achieve top-three market positioning in each jurisdiction we enter, measured by gross written premiums,” Muhieddine said.

It plans to deploy insurance through its telecom and fintech platforms, bundling coverage with handset financing and mobile phone loans.

For decades, underwriting has focused on large corporates and industrial companies, and growth now lies in the retail, micro-business and informal-sector risk pools, Muhieddine said.

Despite favorable demographics and rising digital adoption, many of those potential customers still can’t afford insurance, don’t understand it or simply distrust providers because of delays in settling claims, he said.

“Claims settlement is the definitive test of underwriting credibility,” he said. “Turnaround time, documentation simplicity and contractual transparency directly affect persistency ratios and portfolio retention.”

Pedestrians pass electoral posters of Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president, in central Kampala, Uganda, on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. Photo credit: Badru Katumba/Bloomberg

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Underwriting