'How insurers can secure capacity to meet local content provisions'

 

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Chuks Udo Okonta

 

“Stakeholders out there should be advised to shun independent approach to doing things and align more effectively to the fundamentals of insurance practice globally which is pooling and sharing of risks,” these are submission of the President Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN) Dr. Wole Adetimehin, on how insurers can tackle the challenge of human capacity and maximise opportunities provided by the local content policy.

 

He told Inspen that the concept of pool formation and working together are the only way operators can grow their capacity, adding that available facts show that operators have not begin to scratch the surface of opportunities provided by the local content policy.

 

He said: “I would say inadequate human capacity has remained recurring challenge facing our industry. It is more prominent with the underwriters. Nobody can fault the underline reason of the local content policy initiative and it is meant to cut across all the sectors of the Nigerian economy. But in appraising the benefits so derived from the insurance sector, we are all having the fears as to what conclusion or report card we would give at this time.

 

“This is because from all facts available in real and concrete terms we are yet to begin. Yes, there has been some participation here and there, but it is still far from the real intention and I think the industry should be addressing these challenge in a more pragmatic manner and one of such strategies, would be to really come together, sit down a evolve practical solution.

 

“The whole idea or approach of everybody going about it alone can hardly resolve this challenge. At our level as an institute, the challenge to us is to promote training modules and curriculums that would open or widen the mindset of practitioners as to what to do. Capital base of companies have grown considerably, in fact, beyond imaginable scope.”

 

He noted that beyond capital, there is a lot more that is expected from operators, stressing that operators ought not to underwrite or shoulder risks with their capital. He said capital is meant to provide infrastructures that would propel them to underwrite risks effectively.

 

He said operators need to develop the capacity to absolve risks, adding that the experience has been fairly good in the oil and gas. He noted that if stakeholders can come together under pool formations, as being canvassed, at many levels capacity would grow.

 

Adetimehin said when operators build adequate capacity; they would even go beyond the shore of Nigeria to absolve risks. He urged operators to shun independent approach to doing things and align with globally practices of pooling and sharing of risks.