Ghana’s Reinsurance market remains untapped - Justice Yaw Ofori

The Reinsurance sector in the country largely remains untapped with a lot of room for growth in the provision of reinsurance capacity in the areas of oil and gas, marine, aviation and specialist liability risk.

Mr. Justice Yaw Ofori, Commissioner of the National Insurance Commission (NIC) who disclosed this at the official outdooring of the Afro-Asian Reinsurance Brokers Ghana (AARBG) observed that there was a large market for local reinsurance and intermediaries to tap into.

Giving a justification, he said total premium seeded by the insurance market in the year 2017 was in excess of GHS 419 million and the figure in the year 2016 was also in excess of GHS 422 million.

In order to attract more reinsurance companies and maintain the highest standards, the NIC in 2017 developed and issued the reinsurance guidelines with inputs from all stakeholders in the sector to adhere to.

The move, the Commissioner explained was to encourage reinsurance and co-insurance on local market risk leading to the adequate utilisation of local capacity and minimising premium flight.

Mr Ofori praised Afro-Asian Insurance Services Group for setting up a subsidiary office in the country and urged them to replicate their unique, innovative and sterling services provided to clients around the world and to Ghanaian companies.

“Local insurers will have access to increased capacity leading to unique risk solutions… innovation being provided by the company will improve because there will be direct solutions to the reinsurance of non-traditional risk leading to an increase in insurance penetration in the country,” he added.

Mr John Adu-Kofi, Board Chairman of Afro-Asian Reinsurance Brokers Ghana Limited assured that the company would build a strong foundation to be a central part of risk management business in the country for many years to come.

He said, “The key to successful risk management lies in the understanding of the risk. With the support of our partner, Afro-Asian Insurance Services Limited, UK, we have engaged skilled analysts, who bring extensive market knowledge and product expertise to the organisation. We are also committed to investing in knowledge and technology to manage insurance risk of our clients”.

Mr Adu-Kofi remarked that the company through its effective and efficient efforts could assist insurance clients to lower their risk exposure to the maximum degree and support them to achieve sustainable and profitable growth.

“We take decisions promptly and transparently. Our clients benefit from our unique set-up with our partners. In our decision-making process, we are supported by a strong technological backbone of Afro-Asian Insurance Service Limited, UK, which hosts our underwriting, modeling and back-office operations and tools to support our market opportunities.

“Also, the cornerstone of our success is our dedication to and focus on providing speedy and attentive reinsurance brokering solutions on a multi-line and long-term basis to insurers in the market”, he noted.

Mr Adu-Kofi said the company was committed to building and nurturing long-term, durable relationships with its clients adding that “Whenever we sign a contract we have the confidence that we will still write business with this partner in five years-time, because we invest in a relationship and want it to grow and prosper”.

He said Afro-Asian Reinsurance Brokers Ghana Limited would provide a complete suite of reinsurance brokering services, offer greater support to clients and build a strong sustainable business to bring greater security and stability to the insurance industry, the future engine of growth for the country.