Insurers seek ways to enhance performance

Chuks Udo Okonta

How to enhance insurance operators performance would top the agenda in the

Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN) 2012 Insurance Professionals’ Forum scheduled for September 12 to 15 in the Oyo State capital, Ibadan.

A statement by its Director of Corporate Communications Joseph Obah, said the event with the theme “Beyond Professionalism: Making a Difference”, would provide an opportunity for operators to rub minds on the issues affecting their practice and business.

Its President  Dr Wole Adetimehin, said the theme is a clarion call on professionals in insurance and the larger financial services sector, requiring them to brace up for emerging challenges facing the global economy. Adetimehin said that professionals should be better equipped to exhibit competences which are over and above mere professional qualifications.

He said: “The need has arisen for professionals to be further equipped both as risk managers and change agents through effective control of their business and positive transformation of the organizations under their trust.”

Director General of CIIN, Adegboyega Adepegba said it has become necessary for all insurance professionals to attend the Forum, stating that it is the only way they can key into the Institute’s Professional development agenda.

He regretted that attendance at the annual fora has been below expectation, especially in an era when other professions are maximizing such opportunities without compulsion. “I make bold to say that apathy to professional education cannot correct the palpable skills imbalance in an industry that is in dire need of greater expertise in the effective underwriting of many special risks including the emerging risks occasioned by security threats across the nation,” he said. The DG further decried the segmentation of the profession by some practitioners for selfish interests, stating that all must first see themselves as insurance professionals before classifying themselves as underwriters, reinsurers, brokers and loss adjusters.

He noted that it would be a new beginning for the Institute if all insurance professionals in mainstream insurance practice and those engaged as risk managers in government parastatals such as NNPC, NLNG as well as oil companies, manufacturing companies and banks, attends the forum at the Premier Hotel, Ibadan from 12^th September. “We want to see a new beginning for us if all the professionals are able to storm the forum,” he said 

Observers believe that the insurance professionals in Nigeria could do better in terms of attendance at their annual professionals’ forum, considering the fact that the gathering engenders immense benefits in their continuous professional development.

Available data show that there are over 3,000 registered Fellows and Associates who comprise the core professionals and technocrats driving insurance business in Nigeria. Of these, only an average of 400 had attended the professionals’ forum since its commencement in 1991.