Somalia's first insurance company works to grow business as recovery takes root.

June 18, 2015 The private sector in Somalia is spearheading the recovery efforts of Somalia, and for the first time in a long time, people in the country are now able to buy insurance policies in the country.

First Somali Takaful and Retakaful Company  resumed operations last year in Mogadishu. The company has big plans of reviving the insurance market which was virtually nonexistent by selling life, car and house insurance schemes, in the hopes of making gains from the victory over Al-Shabbab.

Customer Abdinor Ilmi said “I am very happy to have my car insured because the insurance company will take care of me if there is an accident. It is the first time I am signing up for this service,”

People and their property have been prone to risks for years and the company says getting them to secure assets and their lives has not been easy.

Abdiwahid Ahmed Guled, one of the directors at First Somali Takaful and Retakaful, said “The main challenges we faced is that lack of information about insurance in Somalia. It has taken some time to persuade people to insure their property at an affordable price but we are also working with clients from the Diaspora and business people in the city,”

 “We have been working for some months and we have more than 200 clients. As you see this gives us great inspiration in a short period of time and we expect to get more than 5000 clients before the end of this year,”

Somalia is working hard to attract investors who are willing to stump up hundreds of millions of dollars to fund large-scale energy and transport projects.