Britam Launches Trust Services as Unclaimed Wealth Soars

Pan-African insurer Britam has launched a trust services business to help clients protect and transfer wealth across generations, entering a market shaped by ballooning unclaimed assets and rising succession disputes.

• •Britam Trust Services will offer two products: the Britam Cash Trust, for ring-fenced funds tied to specific beneficiary needs such as education or healthcare, and the Britam Family Trust, which can hold property, businesses, investments and cash.
• •The Cash Trust opens with a KSh 5,000 minimum, or a one-off KSh 50,000 deposit, a pricing structure designed to pull trusts out of the preserve of wealthy families and into everyday financial planning.
• •Britam, listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange under the ticker BRIT, operates across seven African markets including Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.

“Our role is to help our customers protect what they have worked hard to build, preserve it with intention, and pass it on with clarity and purpose,” said Group Managing Director and CEO Tom Gitogo.

“A trust is not just for the rich people. It is for all of us,” said Moses Kang’ethe, Acting CEO of Britam Life Assurance.

The timing tracks a deepening problem in Kenya, with data from the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority showing it now holds more than KSh 115 billion in dormant bank accounts, investments, pension payouts and insurance proceeds, up from KSh 75.5 billion in December 2024, a jump of roughly 53% in a year. Most of that money sits unreturned: UFAA has reunited less than 10% of total holdings with rightful owners, hampered by inheritance disputes, documentation hurdles and what auditors have flagged as high claims costs relative to small payouts.

Britam is pitching its trusts as a fix at the point of failure: name a trust as beneficiary on a policy or account, and the asset bypasses the conditions that typically push money into UFAA’s vaults in the first place.

The product also extends Britam’s existing distribution. The firm already lets customers name Britam Trust Services as a beneficiary on its Whole Life Insurance Plan, which offers cover of up to KSh100 million, and the new trust unit will manage payouts from pension and group life schemes where beneficiaries are minors. That gives Britam a built-in pipeline from its insurance and retirement businesses straight into the trust product, without needing to build a separate client base from scratch.

The stock has risen 77.35% over the past year, last trading at KSh12.45 with a market capitalisation of KSh31.4 billion.

For a market where succession planning has traditionally meant a will, if anything at all, Britam’s bet is that low minimums and integrated distribution can shift trusts from a niche estate tool into a mainstream household product.