Monday 13 August 2012

Insurers now pay oil, gas claims promptly –Otegbeye


 by Nike Popoola

The Managing Director, Regency Alliance Plc, Mr. Biyi Otegbeye, has said that local underwriters who are participating in the oil and gas business have been paying claims emanating from the business without delay.
During an interview with our correspondent in Lagos, he said that since the official introduction of the guideline on oil and gas business for the insurance sector, local underwriters’ capacity in the sector had been enhanced.
Otegbeye said, “On few occasions where there have been large claims, this market has responded very well. There was a blow out in oil and gas business recently involving underwriters and we are talking of several millions of dollars. And within two weeks, this industry responded promptly to the delight of the international market.”
According to him, the local content law ensures domesticating of the risk to a certain level in the industry.
He said most insurance companies underwriting the risk had technical partners and had continued to train their personnel.
He said, “We have extensively trained our personnel to ensure that they can cope with volatile and complex risk, even though, substantial underwriting of the risk still resides abroad.”
Otegbeye observed that the underwriters were still having challenges because of the oligopoly system, which still existed in the foreign market, saying prices were being regulated substantially.
“So the kind of competition that you are going to expect and the variability is not there, so there are only a few places where you can reinsure some of these risks. When you go to A, B, C, it is like they have held meetings, and they have regulated the prices, consequently, the industry is having a lot of problems, growing retention capacity and retaining some money internally to develop the sector we are talking about. But generally, I can tell you that the industry has been greatly transformed by this law,” he said.

Source: PUNCH

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