Yemisi Izuora
The Chief Executive Officer of Rim Insurance Brokers, Mr. Rowland Madiebo has identified dearth of technical competence for present challenges in the industry.
Madiebo observed that lack of high tech insurance risk managers is partly responsible for the inability of insurance companies in Nigeria to take on high risk policies.
He explained that the Nigerian insurance industry is not totally lacking in capacity to underwrite certain risks, but requires technical expertise to understand what the policy is all about.
He therefore urged insurance practitioners in the country to be conscious of the kind of information they disseminate about the industry which, according to him, might affect the industry negatively either now or in future.
He said: “I don’t believe we lack capacity. The area I will say we are lacking is the technical expertise to understand what the policy is all about and how it could be restructured; how it could be accommodated by the financial capacity of the country because when we talk about capacity everybody looks at the amount we have; the sum insured; the amount available to the insurance industry.
No, If we have the technical capacity, we will be able to tackle the financial capacity relating to underwriting of such risk and you must have adequate knowledge of what you are taking.”
He said that it was unfortunate that people, especially practitioners, were going about saying that Nigeria’s insurance industry does not have capacity to underwrite certain risks.
“I am one of the pioneers of Energy Insurance in this country and to be specific, the leading energy operator in energy sector three practitioners including myself initiated the policy that is being used today.
“The policy was initiated between 1987 and 1989 and it officially took off in 1990. What other members of the industry inherited happened to be the policy, the premium and the commission.
They omitted the background circumstance of how the policy came about and how the policy was formulated,” he added.
He advised operators to stop unnecessary competitions and price wars and ensure they play the game by the rule by following laid down rules and regulations guiding the business so that the industry would be able to rise to its challenges and meet its obligations of contributing significantly to the nation’s economy as it is done in other countries of the world.
“For instance, if you get such a large risk and throw it open in the country for companies to pool and quote where they would have been talking of N10 billion premium, N15 billion premium, some will come and tell the policy holder give me N500 million I will insure it and when there is a claim, there would be problem.”