NKECHI NAECHE-ESEZOBOR–The President of African Insurance Organisation (AIO), Mr. Tope Smart, has frowned at the low insurance penetration rate in African.
He made his position known yesterday at the ongoing 48th Conference and Annual General Assembly of the AIO in Nairobi, Kenya.
According to him African insurance industry remains one of the least penetrated in the world, with an average of about 2%, which is low compared to the global average of around 7%.
“Our industry’s growth keeps getting slowed down by our inability to build substantial capital reserves due to poor saving culture and “Premium flight”, while “there is still heavy reliance on foreign expertise,” he said.
He added that “Our industry is still plagued by poor public image and lack of trust”, saying “these and many more are the challenges we face today, and we need to address them if we intend to secure a better future for our industry.”
“As AIO clocks 60 this year, he informed that the Golden Jubilee of the organisation will be marked by a symposium, where the operators intend to discuss some of these challenges facing the insurance industry in the continent.
In view of the fact that the African Development Bank posited that Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate change impacts under all climate scenarios above 1.5 degrees Celsius.
He expressed worries that “despite having contributed the least to global warming and having the lowest emissions, Africa faces exponential collateral damage, posing systemic risks to its economies, infrastructure investments, water and food systems, public health, agriculture and livelihoods, threatening to undo its modest development gains and slip into higher levels of extreme poverty”.
frican Insurance Organisation (AIO) said it signed a revised Headquarters Agreement with the Cameroonian Government in Yaoundé recently, which now grants the AIO all the merits of an international organisation with accompanying advantages.
As the continent’s risk managers, he called on the insurance sector to provide risk management solutions, in the form of risk mitigation and transfer, building resilience and enabling the continent transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
He further urged the insurance operators to strive to always be an enabler and not a barrier to the advancement of the African insurance industry and African development as a whole.
