United Insurance inaugurates new HQ

The 25-year-old United Insurance inaugurates a 300 million birr building five years after the groundbreaking ceremony.
The new high rise sits on a 2,000 sqm plot around ‘Tewodros Square’. The 12-storey building has three basements which can be used to park 500 cars.
The design and construction of the office was done by Geretta Consult and Zamra construction Plc.
United Insurance leased the land to build the headquarters from a third party 20 years ago however as Tesfaye Desta, deputy operational manager of the Insurance Company told Capital, at the time United was looking for more land from the government to make a bigger building. However, when they were unable to secure more they decided to begin building on the plot they had. “Even though we waited for a long time for permission to build a better building than this we didn’t get it so we decided to start the building.”
United also had three other buildings one at Bahirdar and Bole Medhanialem which they rent out for extra income and use as a branch office and another at Kality which is used for similar purposes as well as storing damaged equipment.
United was headquartered in a rented space at the Ethiopian Workers Association building when it started operating, and after merging with Lion Insurance, United moved to Alta Awlo building near ‘Beklobet’.
The United Insurance Company SC, better known as, “UNIC-ETHIOPIA” was established by 87 Ethiopians (individuals and enterprises) in November 1994 with an authorized capital of 25 million birr and an initial paid up capital of 8.073 million birr. Following the merger with Lion Insurance Company SC in 2002, the company is currently owned by more than 500 shareholders.
Currently, the Company’s authorized capital is 600 million birr and 1.6 billion birr in assets with 50 branches all over the country.
Meseret Bezabeh, CEO of United Insurance said “UNIC-ETHIOPIA’’ aims to be the best insurance company in Ethiopia, the most professional, most commercial, and most responsible by providing complete insurance coverage at economic rates, honest, prompt, and courteous claims services, to fully satisfy all its constituencies: customers, shareholders, employees, society and the environment.
In its 25 years, United has been building its capacity, said Meseret.
United sells motor insurance, travel insurance, funeral insurance, fire insurance and political violence insurance, which has been put in place due to the instability in the nation. The CEO said the insurance paid over 1.7 million birr to one customer who have a political violence insurance. Many customers have been asking to purchase the insurance but United has not offered it to them. Meseret says that because of the insecure situation they may have to pay out more in compensation than they are able to.