Uganda Insurance Regulatory Authority releases product AML risk assessment tool to score insurance products’ ML and TF risk

The Uganda Insurance Regulatory Authority has published a Product AML Risk Assessment tool that enables insurers to evaluate the inherent money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) risk of insurance products and assign an overall low, medium or high rating. The tool uses an insurance products ML/TF risk matrix covering product risk, client risk, geographical risk and distribution channels, with the total evaluation for each criterion required to equal 100%. Inputs include product class (life or non-life), life product features such as savings components and surrender benefits, premium payment frequency and annual premium bands, as well as customer type, residence and exposure to high-risk jurisdictions, politically exposed persons, beneficial ownership checks for corporate clients and non-profit organisations. It also captures target geographical coverage, sources of business such as telesales and internet channels and accepted payment methods including mobile money, aggregates these into an “ML/FT risk total”, and maps results to thresholds of 20–38 (low), >38–56 (medium) and >56–75 (high), with space to record mitigating actions.