The West African insurance operators under the aegis of West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA), has been urged to use the 50th anniversary of its educational conference being hosted in Lagos to deliberate and recommend ways of repositioning the insurance industry in West Africa for global competiveness.
The charge is coming from Mrs (Dr) Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, Hon Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning in her keynote address. While maintaining that global competitiveness is sacrosanct, she asserts that the theme of the three day confab makes it imperative that the home front must be prepared for the seal of global competitiveness.
In establishing the theme before the attendees from the sub region captioned “Repositioning the insurance industry in West Africa for global competitiveness,” Zainab said there is need to establish high quality insurance database to provide a holistic view of the industry’s operations in the sub-region.
She also emphasised the for WAICA members to leverage technology and other alternative distribution channels in order to increase penetration which the Minister reminded the sub regional insurers that it is an Africa problem which scales insurance down in contribution to financial growth.. “therefore maintaining efficient, fair, safe and stable insurance market in the West Africa sub region must be promoted for the benefit of the policyholders and other stakeholders.”
She also called for enhanced multilateral cooperation with the objective of promoting international standards in fostering favourable investment environments and orderly markets in the sub region and beyond.
The Minister, represented by the Commissioner for Insurance, Sunday O. Thomas, therefore, urged the regional body to be swift in response to wide range of global social and economic forces. “In particular, 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.”
