SORAS: Rest Assured

By Louise Umutoni  Imagine, crashing and totally wrecking your new BMW 6 Series that you saved literary your whole life for.  Try to picture that dream house that you recently constructed being totally vandalized by thugs, or, worse still, burning to cinders in a towering inferno.  Tragedy has struck, and you think you have nowhere to turn. That’s not entirely true. SORAS Insurance Company is there for you. SORAS, a French acronym for Societe Rwandaise d’Assurance, started in the early eighties and has since leap-frogged to become the one of the nations largest insurers.  

SORAS was the first fully private insurance company to be introduced in Rwanda, in collaboration with a major European insurance company – Union des Assurances de Paris (UAP International). Gaining valuable experience and expertise from their European mentor, SORAS became fully digitalized four years after its establishment and quickly established itself as a leading insurance firm in Rwanda. 

The Client as King      

At a time when Rwanda’s private sector was characterized by inefficiency, SORAS chose to treat its clients as kings, a standard it has maintained to date.   It remains one of the few insurance companies that reimburses clients without subjecting them to the usual red tape. The company has also commissioned numerous research studies and surveys into customer satisfaction and is constantly searching for new and innovative products that will serve the present and future needs of its clients.  

In the two decades of its existence, SORAS has managed to establish an extensive, nationwide network of agencies and sub-headquarters, with the main headquarters located in the capital, Kigali.   

The company boasts of a wide range of products developed specifically with the client in mind. These include, among other services, automobile insurance, which covers theft of the vehicle and injury to the client and third-party occupants of the vehicle and insurance for damage to goods, be it natural or due to another cause.  

SORAS is also a believer in the investment potential of Rwanda, and has acted on this faith in constructing a high-rise luxurious apartment building, the PRIMA 2000 Residence located in Kacyiru.  It has also constructed elaborate quarters for all its major branches nationwide.    

While the company’s services have already won it nationwide acclaim, it has remained steadfast in its commitment to innovation. In 1999 SORAS introduced the first life insurance policy to Rwanda, a product that has led competitors to follow suit. Six years later it went on to introduce MEDIPLAN, a private medical insurance policy that has attracted a huge clientele due to its reliability.