Professionalising the sector:
what it asks of loss assessors.

The Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda's professionalisation agenda has generated commentary on qualifications, conduct and service standards across the insurance value chain. For independent loss assessors and claims investigators, professionalisation is not an abstract policy objective. It is something that shows up — or does not show up — in every file produced.

The regulatory backdrop

IRA has consistently signalled its expectation that professional competence in insurance extends to every intermediary involved in the claims process. Loss assessors, adjusters and claims investigators are among the licensed categories of insurance service providers in Uganda, alongside insurers, brokers, agents and auditors. IRA maintains a register of licensed loss assessors and adjusters and publishes licensing guidelines that set out the minimum requirements for practice.

This licensing framework does not exist in isolation. The Insurance Appeals Tribunal, established in 2022 to handle disputes between policyholders and insurers, has in its rulings repeatedly drawn attention to the quality — or inadequacy — of loss assessment reporting. By September 2025, the Tribunal had handled 51 appeals, with the majority arising from group life, motor comprehensive and medical claims. In many of these cases, the quality of the assessment report directly influenced the outcome.

What the Tribunal is finding

The IAT Chairperson, Ms. Rita Namakiika Nangono, has been direct in her assessment of the industry's challenges. Speaking at the 65th CEO's Breakfast Meeting in September 2025, she noted that some loss assessors and adjusters lack the expertise to conduct proper investigations and produce reports that meet the standard required.

This observation is not a generalised criticism of the profession. It reflects a specific, practical problem: the Tribunal, in adjudicating disputes, relies on the written record produced by the assessor. When that record is incomplete, inconsistent or poorly reasoned, the Tribunal cannot determine what the evidence supports — and the dispute remains unresolved.

The IRA Chief Executive Officer, Alhaj Dr. Kaddunabbi Ibrahim Lubega, has reinforced this point from the regulator's perspective. Loss assessors, he has stated, are performing a service for underwriters to make decisions. The implication is clear: the assessor's role is to present evidence and analysis, not to advocate for the instructing party. That distinction — between evidence-based reporting and advocacy — is a core element of what professionalisation asks of assessors.

What professionalisation means in practice

Professionalisation, for an independent loss assessor, is not primarily about holding the right certificate — though that matters. It is demonstrated through method:

• Consistent site procedure. Attending the site promptly, following a defined inspection protocol, photographing evidence systematically, and recording measurements where they matter. The same approach on every assignment, regardless of which insurer instructed it.
• Verifiable evidence. Every finding in a report should be supported by evidence that a reader can evaluate — photographs with location and date data, documents verified at source, and measurements recorded at the time of inspection rather than from memory.
• Declared limitations. Where the evidence does not support a conclusion — where the information available is insufficient, where access was restricted, where specialist input is needed but not yet available — this should be stated clearly. An assessment that overreaches its evidence is worse than an incomplete one, because it creates false certainty.
• Impartiality. The report should not bend to the interests of whichever party instructed the assignment. This is not merely an ethical standard; it is a practical one. An assessor's credibility — and the value of their report — rests on the reader's confidence that the findings are objective.

"Standards are demonstrated file by file, not in policy statements."

Writing for the reader

Professionalisation also asks something that training programmes often underemphasise: writing for the reader. A report full of technical shorthand that a claims committee, a reinsurance handler or a tribunal member cannot interpret has not done its job, however accurate the underlying inspection may have been.

The best assessment reports anticipate who will read them. The claims officer needs a clear basis for a payment decision. The underwriter needs to understand what happened and why the loss falls (or does not fall) within the policy. The Tribunal needs a plain account of the evidence and the reasoning. These are different audiences with different levels of technical knowledge, and the report should serve all of them.

The Insurance Training College, listed among IRA's partner agencies, represents one institutional response to the professional development challenge. But professional learning also happens through practice — through reading other assessors' reports, through the questions claims officers ask, and through the discipline of reviewing one's own work against the standard that the Tribunal's rulings set.