What does the PIA require of life insurers in Zambia?

The PIA's role

The PIA supervises both insurance and pensions. On the insurance side it decides who may carry on insurance business, monitors whether licensed insurers remain financially sound and treat policyholders fairly, and can take action where they do not. It also publishes industry information and guidance. For current licensing requirements, return templates and guidelines, the authoritative source is the PIA's own website rather than any summary.

The Insurance Act No. 38 of 2021

The Act is the primary law for insurance in Zambia. Among its features relevant to life insurers are the following.

• Licensing of insurers, reinsurers, brokers, agents and other intermediaries.
• Separation of long-term (life) insurance business from general insurance business.
• Obligations to maintain financial soundness and to file periodic returns with the regulator.
• Provisions for policyholder protection and complaints handling.
• Regulatory powers of inspection, direction and enforcement.

Returns and reporting

Licensed insurers submit returns to the PIA on a periodic basis covering their business volumes, claims, financial position and other matters the regulator specifies. Producing these accurately requires policy counts, premiums, claims and reserves that reconcile to the ledger. Insurers that assemble returns from spreadsheets across several systems spend a great deal of effort on reconciliation and carry a higher risk of error. The precise content and frequency of returns are set by the PIA and can change, so check its current requirements.

Policyholder protection and complaints

The Act provides for the protection of policyholders and for complaints to be handled. In practice this means an insurer should have a documented complaints process, respond within reasonable time, keep records of each complaint and its outcome, and be able to demonstrate fair claims handling. Where a policyholder is not satisfied, the matter can be escalated to the regulator. Our guide on how claims work in Zambia covers this from the customer's side.

Intermediaries and conduct

Agents and brokers must be licensed, and the insurer is responsible for the conduct of the agents it appoints. Keeping an accurate register of agents, their licences, the policies they sold and the commissions paid is both a compliance requirement and a business control. Agent and broker management is therefore part of compliance, not just sales.

Related obligations: data protection and tax

Beyond the PIA, life insurers handle sensitive personal data and are subject to the Data Protection Act No. 3 of 2021, and their tax affairs are administered by the Zambia Revenue Authority. Systems should support both: access control and audit trails for personal data, and clean financial records for tax.

What this means for systems

Regulatory readiness comes down to data discipline: one record per policy and claim, premiums and claims that reconcile to the ledger, an audit trail of who changed what, an agent register, and a complaints log. A system that keeps these as a by-product of daily operations makes returns a report rather than a project. Ontech LifeI ERP's PIA compliance page describes how it supports this; the regulator's requirements themselves should always be taken from the PIA.