On a regular afternoon in downtown Kampala, a boda boda rider leans against his motorcycle, nursing a bandaged arm perhaps with vivid healing wounds or visible scars on his face. The motorcycle, his lifeline, is scarred with a cracked fender from a minor accident the week before or a day before.
He still has to pay the bike owner daily rental fees, buy fuel, and send money home to his family in the countryside. This is a common story for many boda-boda riders. When asked how they handled the hospital bill, they say their friends collected some money for them.
For thousands of boda riders across Uganda, one incident on the road can derail not only their ability to work but also the survival of the families that depend on them. Yet, most of these men and women, who form the backbone of Uganda’s urban transport, move through life without any insurance cover.
And that’s where the question arises: what happens if your boda guy had insurance? Uganda’s roads remain among the most dangerous in Africa. In 2024 alone, the country recorded 25,107 road crashes, a 6.4 percent increase compared to 2023. These accidents resulted in 25,808 casualties, up from 24,728 the year before. Of these, 4,434 crashes were fatal, according to police data.
Boda bodas are at the centre of this crisis. At Mulago National Referral Hospital, the country’s largest emergency care facility, the statistics are grim. Dr Justine Okello from Mulago’s accident and emergency unit, says at least 30 of the 40 admissions his department receives daily are accident-related, with more than 60 percent involving boda boda riders or their passengers. ‘People think treatment in government hospitals is free of charge,’ Dr Okello explains.
‘But there is no free medical care. The government pays part of the cost through taxes, but the sheer numbers of road accidents overwhelm the system. We see patients who need surgeries costing between Shs10m and Shs20m, sometimes more. Without insurance, these families are left destitute.’ Despite the risks, Uganda’s insurance penetration remains below 1.0 percent. Most car owners stick to the bare minimum: statutory third-party cover, which offers little protection beyond a small payout for bodily injury. A 2020 Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) study showed that 86 percent of motorists buy third-party insurance, while only 14 percent opt for comprehensive cover. Worse still, many Ugandans still see third-party cover as nothing more than a ‘police tax,’ something to show at checkpoints, not a shield against risk. For boda boda riders, the picture is even bleaker.
Few have any form of cover, leaving them and their passengers entirely exposed to the financial shocks of accidents. This is the backdrop against which a wave of insurance innovation has begun to emerge, driven by partnerships between technology platforms, banks, and insurers. Christian Wamambe, country director of SafeBoda Uganda, recalls how the journey began.
‘Every week, we would check on drivers who were no longer active. Many of them told us the same story: they had an accident, they were sick, or they had a family emergency. They simply didn’t have a safety net,’ he says. SafeBoda, which started as a boda-hailing platform, but has since expanded into car-hailing under the brand SafeCar, realised that offering affordable insurance could be a game-changer. In 2022, the company partnered with Liberty General Insurance and Stanbic Bank Uganda’s bancassurance arm to introduce a low-cost insurance product for riders and passengers.
Customers could opt for trips with built-in accident cover. Within months, more than 1.5 million insured trips had been taken. ‘For the drivers, it was about peace of mind,’ Wamambe explains. ‘For passengers, it meant protection if anything went wrong. We wanted insurance to be as easy as sending a WhatsApp message.’
Building on that foundation, the three partners have now launched Protecta Bode, a product designed for SafeCar drivers but with lessons that resonate across the entire transport sector. The name itself is a nod to Uganda’s cultural roots. ‘Protecta’ borrows from the English word ‘protect,’ while ‘Bode’ is derived from the Luganda word for ‘body,’ emphasising the focus on the car’s physical structure. According to Liberty’s head of marketing, Raphael Bisaso, Protecta Bode was designed to address the gap between third-party insurance (cheap but insufficient) and comprehensive insurance (thorough but too expensive for most Ugandans).
For a premium of just 1.5 percent of a vehicle’s market value, this product offers comprehensive coverage. It includes protection for accidental damage to the car body, covering costs for repairs, panel beating, and the replacement of parts. Additionally, the policy addresses third-party liabilities, covering expenses related to bodily injury, death, or property damage caused by the insured vehicle. Finally, it provides medical benefits for the driver in the event of an accident.
For SafeCar drivers, many of whom operate lower-value vehicles like Spacios, Wish, and Vitz, this offers affordable peace of mind. A bumper replacement or cracked windscreen that might once have forced a driver off the road for weeks can now be handled more easily. But the principle goes beyond cars. As Wamambe notes, the same thinking can and should apply to the boda riders who ply Kampala roads every day.
Insurance for boda riders is not just a concern for the riders themselves, but for everyone, due to three compelling reasons. First, it involves protecting livelihoods: a single accident can be financially devastating. A rider typically earns between Shs20,000 and Shs40,000 on a good day, but one crash can wipe out weeks of earnings, particularly if hospitalisation is required.
When a riders’ income vanishes, their entire household, including wives, children, and siblings suffers. Insurance acts as a crucial cushion, helping riders recover and return to work faster, stabilising their family’s finances. Second, it is essential for safeguarding passengers. For the passengers who rely on boda bodas, an accident can instantly translate into sudden, unexpected hospital bills. When insurance is incorporated into the service, passengers gain essential peace of mind, knowing they won’t be left financially stranded after a crash.
Finally, insuring boda boda riders helps ease the massive strain on the national health system by reducing pressure on hospitals. Public facilities like Mulago hospital are already buckling under the weight of accident victims. If more riders were insured, a significant portion of their treatment costs would be covered privately, directly reducing the burden on taxpayers and the country’s limited resources. As Dr Okello aptly summarises, “Every boda rider insured is not just protecting himself, it’s protecting the hospital system and the country’s limited resources.” Insurance innovations like Protecta Bode are possible because of Uganda’s insurance sandbox, introduced by the IRA in 2020. The sandbox allows companies to test products in a controlled environment without going through the full licensing process immediately.
‘Traditional insurance would never have allowed a product like Protecta Bode to launch as quickly as it did,’ says IRA’s Erimo Marcos from the Department of Strategy and Market Development. ‘The sandbox gave Liberty the flexibility to test it. If it works, it can later become a fully licensed product.’ The regulator has also introduced the Insurance Innovation Awards to reward creative solutions, many of which target low-income or underserved groups. Liberty, Stanbic, and SafeBoda’s earlier collaboration, SafeRide, won the Most Innovative Bancassurance Agent Award in 2023. For Stanbic Bank, the partnership is part of a broader vision of financial inclusion. ‘Insurance is not a luxury. It’s an investment in resilience,’ says Samuel F Mwogeza, the bank’s executive director and head of personal and private banking.
‘Products like Protecta Bode allow us to bridge banking and insurance, making protection simple and affordable.’ The bank’s language is clear: choose resilience over risk, security over uncertainty, and progress beyond fear. For Liberty General Insurance, it is about building products that speak directly to the lived realities of Ugandans. ‘We found that eight out of 10 cars on the road have a dent or a scratch,’ says Bisaso. ‘That’s the everyday problem drivers face. Protecta Bode addresses it without demanding they pay for full comprehensive cover they can’t afford.’