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By Henry Uche, [email protected]
The snail’s pace of insurance penetration and its poor contribution to countries’ economy is still giving stakeholders in the sector worry, not only in Nigeria but among countries within West African sub-region of the continent.
Another challenge giving insurance stakeholders some nightmare is the incurable negative perception by the public over insurance business. The truth remain that, many people over the years have had concrete and solid reasons to smear the sector and its operators. However, efforts have been on top gear to correct this negative perception and ugly narratives insurance sector has been battling with over the years.
With these drawbacks and many other issues bedeviling the sector, the insurance sector in Nigeria and Africa at large have not been able stand competitively with other insurance sectors in the global insurance industry. These setbacks can be evidently seen through the lenses of contribution it has made in overall economy of each country. In Nigeria for instance, the contribution of insurance sector to Gross Domestic Product is less than one percent. On jobs creation, the sector is not actually doing well, reasons been that, most young Nigerians, especially school leavers do not see prospect in the sector as the jobs readily available for them are more of marketing of insurance Products which to them (young graduates) are not juicy nor promising.
For these reasons and more, the West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA) came together to tackle the multi- layered problems of the sector head-on at its Educational Conference and Golden Jubilee (50th anniversary) conference held in Lagos recently.
With the theme: ‘Re-Positioning The Insurance Industry In West Africa
For Global Competitiveness’ experts drawn from each of the entire value chain strongly believed that, there are things the key players in the sector were doing in the wrong way and need to stopped forthwith, and at the same time, there are things they have not been doing at all which ought to be done if the sector must make significant impact to humanity in the continent and beyond.
Some of key stakeholders to hold responsible for a progressive movement or otherwise of the sector are: the government and the regulator, operators/ Insurers, independent insurance professionals, teachers of insurance, among others.
Delivering a keynote at the conference, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Budget & National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, charged WAICA to maintain the vision of the founding fathers of WAICA, which was to improve the image of the insurance industry in West Africa and make significant contributions to African economy.
“Establishing an enabling environment for industries and economies by promoting cooperation in every respect amongst all the insurers and reinsurers companies operating in its sub-region is one of the corner stones of WIACA.
“It has become imperative for the Insurance supervisory systems and practices to continually upgrade its operations in order to cope with developmental challenges to mitigate possible financial and systemic stability concerns arising from the insurance sector as they emerge. There is also need to establish high quality insurance database to provide a holistic view of the industry’s operations in the sub-region”
The minister represented by the Commissioner for lnsurance, Mr, Sunday Thomas, applauded WAISA for establishing the College of Insurance Supervisors of the West African Monetary Zone (CISWAMZ), saying they must deliver on mandate of strengthening cross border insurance supervision.
“Given the low penetration and poor contribution to most African countries financial growth, therefore maintaining efficient, fair, safe and stable insurance market in the West African sub- region must be promoted for the benefit of the policyholders and other stakeholders.
“We must leverage technological innovations, and a positive paradigm shift focused and poised to meet the anticipated surge in the demand and untapped side. There is need for multilateral cooperation with the aim of promoting international standards, fostering favourable investment environments and orderly markets in the West African sub- region and beyond.
“There is need to establish high quality insurance database to provide a holistic view of the industry’s operations in the sub-region.
WAICA must swiftly response to wide range of global social and economic forces. Insurance and insurance-linked financial activities are increasingly crossing national and sectorial boundaries. Consequently, it has become imperative for the insurance supervisory systems and practices to continually upgrade in order to cope with these developments to mitigate possible financial and systemic stability concerns arising from the insurance sector as they emerge.”
In an address, the vice president of WAICA, (now president), Mr. Eddie Efekoha, said WAICA conference was veritable platform for experts in the sector to enrich their knowledge of insurance, share business information and network as insurance players in the sub-region, thus, he expressed optimism that the sector would boom after a long cross pollination and fertilization of ideas.
\He maintained that the
