Uphold Ethics of Insurance Industry to Build Resilience – Dr Anafure

Players in the insurance industry must uphold professionalism and ethics to build resilience, the President of Association of Insurers and Reinsurance of Developing Countries (AIRDC), Dr Aaron Issa Anafure, has said.

He cautioned that players and companies must not underwrite in a bid to attract more customers or clients.

Dr Anafure who took over from Yassir Albaharna, stated this during the closing ceremony of AIRDC international conference which ended in Accra last Wednesday.

The conference, attended by insurance companies and players from 36 developing countries was on the theme "Building Resilience in the Heat of a Global Economic Tussle."

Dr Anafure, who is the Managing Director, Quality Life Assurance Company Limited (Ghana) said low underwriting was inimical to the industry because it denied the industry of the needed financial resources to pay claims and also made insurance companies to pay claims when disaster struck.

Dr Anafure indicated that when companies underwrite they were not able to reinsure to spread their risk.

The new President of AIRDC said agriculture insurance would be his priority as he heads AIRDC.

He said insurance companies had to develop insurance products to help mitigate the risk in the agriculture sector to cushion farmers and help increase food production.

Dr Anafure explained that addressing the risk associated with agriculture would help more players, especially the youth to enter the sector.

According to him, the fast depreciation of the Cedi was as of result of huge imports into the country.

Dr Anafure encouraged players in the industry to increase education to boost insurance penetration in the country, indicating that although insurance coverage was high due to the advent of smart phones, penetration was low.

"Insurance education will be my priority as President of AIRDC," he said.

Dr Anafure entreated the government to insure all state properties to relieve it of the burden of reconstructing or replacing those facilities with state funds when there was fire or damage to the properties by natural acts.

"Insuring such facilities will put the responsibility on insurance companies to provide such facilities and save government from using tax resources to replace such properties," he said.

Dr Justice Yaw Ofori, the Commissioner of Insurance in the country, who chaired the programme commended participants for active participation in the conference.