01 — OverviewExecutive Summary
Insurance, capital markets, and social security are the three pillars of NFIF3 most directly concerned with long-run financial resilience — protecting households and businesses against shocks (insurance), building wealth over time (capital markets), and securing income in old age or hardship (social security). TICGL/TERI's analysis of the Mid-Term Evaluation Report finds all three growing at rates that would be remarkable in a mature market, precisely because they are starting from such a low base.
Capital-markets investor numbers grew 140.3% to 2,177,135, driven overwhelmingly by an extraordinary 380.5% surge in collective-investment-scheme investors. Insurance coverage rose from a 10.3% baseline to 23.4% of adults, with premium volume up 31.4% to TZS 1,630.0 billion. Informal-sector social security membership more than doubled (+103.2%) to 522,056 accounts — more than three times the growth rate of formal-sector membership (+30.9%). Each of these is a genuine achievement. But TICGL/TERI's reading is that growth rate and adequacy are different claims: insurance still reaches under a quarter of adults, capital-markets participation sits at 5.8%, and social assistance programmes (TASAF, ZUPS) together reach under 1% of the population. All three sub-sectors also show the same structural pattern — access concentrated in urban areas, low financial literacy constraining deeper participation, and product design not yet matched to the realities of informal, rural, or lower-income households.
- Insurance: coverage up to 23.4% of adults (from 10.3%); premiums up 31.4% to TZS 1,630.0 billion; access points up 26.7% to 2,770 — but constrained by low public trust and outdated micro-insurance regulation.
- Capital markets: investors up 140.3% to 2.18 million (5.8% of adults, above the 5% 2025 target); collective investment scheme investors up 380.5%; but financial literacy and rural outreach remain the binding constraints on further growth.
- Social security: informal-sector membership up 103.2% to 522,056, more than triple formal-sector growth — driven by NSSF's Hifadhi Scheme and Zanzibar's Sharia-compliant products — but a "continued gender disparity, with a large proportion of underserved being women" persists in formal-sector membership.
- Social assistance: TASAF and Zanzibar's Universal Pension Scheme both expanded, but combined outreach remains under 1% of the total population, per the evaluation's own assessment.
- The common thread: every sub-sector cites the same three constraints — urban-concentrated access points, low financial literacy among youth/informal/middle-income groups, and products not yet designed around real household income patterns.
About TERI — TICGL's Research Institute
This analysis was prepared by the Tanzania Economic Research Institute (TERI), TICGL's dedicated research arm covering financial-sector policy, financial inclusion, and Tanzania's broader economic development. TERI's work spans two complementary strands: collecting and analysing primary data directly from the field — through surveys, key-informant interviews, and site-level data collection, as in TICGL/TERI's own city-level and sector-specific studies — and analysing official statistics published by institutions such as the Bank of Tanzania (BOT), NBS, and the Ministry of Finance, as this page does with the NFIF3 Mid-Term Evaluation. Together, this combination of original fieldwork and rigorous analysis of official data is what allows TERI to produce research that helps policymakers, investors, and development stakeholders make better-informed decisions. This report is part of TERI's ongoing series of Tanzanian economic and financial-policy analysis.
Visit TERI — teri.ticgl.com →Read this alongside TICGL's flagship Dira 2050 policy-gaps analysis
Deep, well-functioning insurance, capital-markets, and pension systems are what let households and businesses take the risks that Dira 2050's growth ambition depends on — without them, every shock (illness, drought, business failure) threatens to reverse hard-won progress. TICGL/TERI recommends reading the two pieces together.
Read: What's Next for Tanzania's Economy? The Policy Gaps Keeping $1 Trillion Out of Reach by 2050 →02 — At a GlanceKey Numbers Across the Three Pillars
Insurance, Capital Markets, and Pension Participation: 2023 → 2025 → 2028 Target
Source: BOT/NCFI, NFIF3 Mid-Term Evaluation Report, Sections 4.2–4.4 and Annex 2 Measurement Framework.
03 — Pillar 1Insurance: Broader Reach, Still Thin Trust
🛡️ Insurance Services
Coverage: 23.4% of adultsInsurance access points grew 26.7% to 2,770 between December 2023 and December 2025, led by insurance agents (+35.9% to 1,472), digital platforms (+28.6%), and the bancassurance agent network (+19.5%). The number of licensed insurance companies rose to 37. On the usage side, insured individuals grew 13.8% to 26.7 million — split almost exactly evenly between men (50.3%) and women (49.7%) — and premium volume rose 31.4% to TZS 1,630.0 billion.
Insurance Access Points by Channel: Growth, Dec 2023 → Dec 2025
| Indicator | Dec-23 | Dec-25 | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active adult insurance users | 23,520,635 | 26,770,199 | +13.8% |
| Insurance policy holders | 7,680,601 | 8,700,000 | +13.3% |
| Insurance beneficiaries | 15,840,034 | 18,070,199 | +14.1% |
| Premium volume (TZS millions) | 1,240,766 | 1,630,090 | +31.4% |
Source: BOT/TIRA, NFIF3 Mid-Term Evaluation Report, Table 15.
- Low public trust and negative perceptions of insurance continue to weaken uptake, per the evaluation's own diagnosis.
- The Micro Insurance Regulation (2013) is not fully aligned with digital distribution models and newer product innovations.
- Access points remain concentrated in urban areas, leaving rural populations comparatively underserved.
- Limited disaggregated supply- and demand-side data constrains targeted product design.
On the positive side, six new TIRA zonal offices brought services and complaint resolution closer to the public, the 2023 Guidelines on Insurance Digital Platforms and Takaful Operators simplified agent registration, and bancassurance partnerships between insurers and banks expanded cost-effective outreach — all cited by the evaluation as direct drivers of the growth recorded.
04 — Pillar 2Capital Markets: The Fastest-Growing Pillar, Powered by One Product
📈 Capital Markets Services
Participation: 5.8% of adultsCapital markets access points grew 14.5% to 435, but the usage-side story is the standout number across all three pillars in this report: individual investors more than doubled to 2,177,135, up from 905,946 in 2023 — a 140.3% increase that pushed capital-markets participation to 5.8% of adults, comfortably above the 5% Mid-Term target.
Capital Market Investors by Product Category, 2023 → 2025
| Category | 2023 | 2025 | % Change | Share of 2025 Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government securities | 13,058 | 24,299 | +86.1% | 1.1% |
| Corporate bonds | 9,612 | 13,225 | +37.6% | 0.6% |
| Collective investment schemes | 299,145 | 1,437,363 | +380.5% | 66.0% |
| Equities | 584,131 | 702,248 | +20.2% | 32.3% |
| Total | 905,946 | 2,177,135 | +140.3% | 100% |
Source: CMSA, NFIF3 Mid-Term Evaluation Report, Table 17.
Collective investment schemes (CIS) — unit trusts and similar pooled vehicles — now account for 66.0% of all capital-market investors, up from 33.0% in 2023, and their investor count grew 380.5% on the back of 17 new schemes launched and technology-enabled platforms (the DSE Mobile Trading Platform, and partnerships such as Sanlam East Africa with M-Pesa). This is a genuinely positive story about retail-accessible pooled investment reaching new savers — but it also means the headline 140.3% growth figure is heavily concentrated in a single, comparatively simple product category, while participation in government securities, corporate bonds, and direct equities — the instruments that typically signal deeper market sophistication — grew far more modestly.
- Emerging cybercrime, fraud, pyramid schemes, and data-breach risk alongside rapid digital-platform growth.
- Limited financial literacy, particularly among youth, informal-sector participants, and middle-income earners.
- A need for inclusive, affordable investment products matched to real household income levels.
- Limited outreach of investment services to the rural population.
On the positive side, the Capital Markets Universities and Higher Learning Institutions Challenge (CMUHLIC) alone created over 180,000 youth investors, and certified capital-market professionals grew from 737 to 998 — both concrete steps toward the literacy and capacity constraints the evaluation names.
06 — The PatternWhat All Three Pillars Have in Common
Reading insurance, capital markets, and social security side by side, the same three constraints recur almost verbatim across all three sub-sector chapters of the evaluation — evidence that these are systemic issues, not sub-sector-specific ones.
| Constraint | Insurance | Capital Markets | Social Security |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urban-concentrated access | ✓ Most access points in urban areas | ✓ Limited rural outreach | ✓ Regional offices concentrated, digital gap in rural areas |
| Low financial literacy | ✓ Low trust/awareness cited | ✓ Named directly — youth, informal, middle-income | ✓ Low awareness among informal workers |
| Products not matched to income | ✓ Regulation not aligned to new models | ✓ Evaluation calls for "inclusive and affordable" products | ✓ Illiquid asset mix vs. informal workers' liquidity needs |
| Digital-risk exposure | Emerging with digital platforms | ✓ Cybercrime, fraud, pyramid schemes named directly | Lower — but ID/digital access still a barrier |
| Weak disaggregated data | ✓ Named directly | Partial | ✓ Named directly — restricts targeting |
The recurrence of nearly identical constraints across three institutionally separate regulators (TIRA, CMSA, PMO-LER/ZSSF) suggests the binding constraint on deepening Tanzania's risk-management ecosystem is less about any single sub-sector's regulation and more about shared, cross-cutting capability gaps — financial literacy infrastructure, rural distribution economics, and disaggregated data systems — that no single regulator can solve alone.
07 — TICGL RecommendationsTurning Growth Into Depth
Modernise regulation to match how these products now reach people
- Update the 2013 Micro Insurance Regulation to reflect digital distribution models and product innovation already in the market.
- Extend the same digital-platform-aware regulatory thinking behind recent capital-markets reforms (crowdfunding guidelines, Sukuk guidelines) to insurance and pensions.
Build a shared financial-literacy infrastructure, not three separate ones
- Scale CMUHLIC-style youth investor programmes (180,000+ reached) as a cross-sector model for insurance and pension literacy, not just capital markets.
- Target literacy efforts specifically at youth, informal-sector workers, and middle-income earners — the group named across all three sub-sector chapters.
Diversify capital-markets growth beyond collective investment schemes
- CIS investors now represent two-thirds of the market; deliberate efforts to grow government-securities, corporate-bond, and equity participation would build a more resilient, diversified investor base.
- Track cyber and fraud risk metrics alongside adoption metrics as digital investment platforms scale.
Match pension-fund asset allocation to informal workers' liquidity needs
- Address the evaluation's own finding of a mismatch between illiquid real-estate-heavy pension portfolios and informal workers' need for liquidity during climate and income shocks.
- Accelerate National ID (NIN) coverage specifically for informal-sector workers — the single most-cited enrolment barrier across social security, insurance, and capital markets alike.
"Insurance, capital markets, and social security all show the fastest growth rates in this entire evaluation — and all three are growing fast for the same reason: they started from almost nothing. The real test for the second half of NFIF3 is whether that growth curve keeps compounding once the easiest wins — mobile-enabled collective investment schemes, a handful of informal-worker pension pilots — are exhausted."
— TICGL / Tanzania Economic Research Institute (TERI)
08 — SourcesReferences and Data Sources
Bank of Tanzania / National Council for Financial Inclusion, The National Financial Inclusion Framework 2023–2028 (NFIF3): Mid-Term Evaluation Report (2023–2025), June 2026. Every figure in this analysis is drawn from that report's insurance, capital markets, and social security sections (Sections 4.2–4.4, Tables 14–19, and Annex 2 Measurement Framework) unless otherwise stated. Underlying supply-side data is credited by the source report to TIRA (insurance), CMSA and BOT (capital markets), and PMO-LER and ZSSF (social security).
The cross-cutting constraint comparison (Table 3) and TICGL's reading boxes throughout are TICGL/TERI's own interpretation of the source data, clearly marked as such. This is an independent analysis of a Bank of Tanzania publication and is not itself a Bank of Tanzania or NCFI publication.
09 — Quick AnswersFrequently Asked Questions
How much has insurance coverage grown in Tanzania?
Insurance coverage reached 23.4% of adults by December 2025, up from a 10.3% baseline in 2023. Insured individuals rose 13.8% to 26.7 million, and premium volume rose 31.4% to TZS 1,630.0 billion.
How many Tanzanians now invest in capital markets?
Individual investors more than doubled to 2,177,135 by December 2025 (+140.3%), putting capital-markets participation at 5.8% of adults — driven mainly by a 380.5% surge in collective-investment-scheme investors.
Has social security coverage improved for informal workers?
Informal-sector member accounts grew 103.2% to 522,056 between 2023 and 2025 — more than three times faster than formal-sector growth (30.9%) — driven by reforms including NSSF's Hifadhi Scheme.
Why is penetration still low despite fast growth?
Low public trust, outdated regulation, limited financial literacy, and access points concentrated in urban areas are cited across all three sub-sectors as the binding constraints on deeper participation.
Muhtasari kwa Kiswahili
Bima, Masoko ya Mitaji, na Hifadhi ya Jamii: Uchambuzi wa TICGL wa NFIF3 — Uchambuzi huu unaangazia nguzo tatu za usimamizi wa hatari za kifedha kwa mujibu wa Ripoti ya Tathmini ya Katikati ya NFIF3 iliyotolewa na Benki Kuu ya Tanzania (BOT) na Baraza la Taifa la Ujumuishaji wa Kifedha (NCFI), Juni 2026.
Matokeo makuu: Bima imefikia asilimia 23.4 ya watu wazima (kutoka asilimia 10.3), huku thamani ya malipo ya bima (premiums) ikiongezeka kwa asilimia 31.4 hadi TZS bilioni 1,630. Wawekezaji kwenye masoko ya mitaji waliongezeka mara mbili zaidi (asilimia 140.3) kufikia milioni 2.18, wakichochewa zaidi na ongezeko la asilimia 380.5 la wawekezaji kwenye mifuko ya uwekezaji ya pamoja (collective investment schemes). Akaunti za hifadhi ya jamii kwa sekta isiyo rasmi ziliongezeka kwa asilimia 103.2 kufikia 522,056 — zaidi ya mara tatu ya kasi ya ukuaji wa sekta rasmi (asilimia 30.9), zikichochewa na Mpango wa Hifadhi wa NSSF unaolenga bodaboda, wachimbaji wadogo, mama na baba lishe, na wafanyabiashara wadogo.
Licha ya ukuaji huu wa haraka, uchambuzi wa TICGL/TERI unaonyesha kuwa nguzo zote tatu bado zinakabiliwa na changamoto zinazofanana: vituo vingi vya huduma bado vimejikita mijini, uelewa mdogo wa masuala ya fedha miongoni mwa vijana na sekta isiyo rasmi, na bidhaa ambazo bado hazijaendana kikamilifu na hali halisi ya kipato cha kaya. Mipango ya TASAF na Mpango wa Pensheni wa Zanzibar (ZUPS) bado inafikia chini ya asilimia moja ya watu wote nchini, na inategemea kwa kiasi kikubwa ufadhili wa nje.
- Bima: asilimia 23.4 ya watu wazima; malipo ya bima TZS bilioni 1,630 (+31.4%)
- Masoko ya mitaji: wawekezaji milioni 2.18 (+140.3%); asilimia 5.8 ya watu wazima
- Hifadhi ya jamii — sekta isiyo rasmi: akaunti 522,056 (+103.2%)
- TASAF/ZUPS: chini ya asilimia 1 ya watu wote nchini
- Changamoto za pamoja: upatikanaji wa mijini, uelewa mdogo wa fedha, bidhaa zisizolingana na kipato
Chanzo: Benki Kuu ya Tanzania (BOT) / Baraza la Taifa la Ujumuishaji wa Kifedha (NCFI), Ripoti ya Tathmini ya Katikati ya NFIF3, Juni 2026. Uchambuzi umeandaliwa na Idara ya Utafiti ya TICGL / Tanzania Economic Research Institute (TERI).
05 — Pillar 3Social Security: Informal-Sector Growth Outpacing Formal, But From a Small Base
🏛️ Social Security & Social Assistance
Informal accounts: +103.2%Social security access points grew only modestly (+4.5% to 116), entirely driven by a 181.8% expansion in digital platforms, while the number of regional offices actually declined (-12.3%) and supplementary pension schemes fell (-33.3%) — a sector consolidating its physical footprint while digitising service delivery.
Formal vs. Informal-Sector Social Security Membership Growth
The evaluation credits several concrete reforms: NSSF's Hifadhi Scheme, established specifically for informal-sector workers — boda boda riders, small-scale miners, mama/baba lishe food vendors, small farmers, and street vendors; Zanzibar's Sharia-compliant pension products, which increased trust and participation by aligning with cultural and religious preferences; a reduction in the unemployment-benefit waiting period from 24 months to just 90 days; and the use of accrued pension benefits as collateral for housing finance, adding a tangible near-term value proposition to a traditionally long-horizon product.
Social assistance: TASAF and Zanzibar's Universal Pension Scheme
Under the Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN), TASAF had created 76,070 digital savings groups comprising 1,012,849 members by the end of the evaluation period — 89.0% of them women — mobilising TZS 17.50 billion in group savings and issuing TZS 8.90 billion in loans; 52.9% of beneficiaries had linked bank savings accounts, mostly smallholder farmers. In Zanzibar, the Universal Pension Scheme (ZUPS) reached 33,213 elders by December 2025 (up from 29,636), with the monthly benefit having been raised from TZS 20,000 to TZS 50,000 for those aged 70+. Both programmes are, by the evaluation's own account, constrained by heavy donor-aid dependency and outreach below 1% of the total population.