‘Insurance can boost healthcare in Africa’

The insurance industry can greatly help in improving healthcare delivery in a country by designing health insurance schemes for increasing accessibility and affordability of medical services to the people.

President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma [Source: Salone Reporter]

The president of Sierra Leone, Dr Ernest Bai Koroma, presenting on the topic ‘The West Africa said health insurance schemes are built upon the time honored principle of the insurance industry for pooling resources together to avert the consequences of life's contingencies on people.
Insurance Industry: The Challenges and Opportunities in the Light of Recent Economic and Socio-Political Developments’

“Our profession (the insurance profession) has often discriminated against ordinary people when it comes to health insurance schemes,” the Sierra Leonean president said while presenting his paper at the 35th Annual General Meeting and Educational Conference of the West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA) which started on Monday.

“Rather, we (insurance practitioners) put great emphases on targeting those who could pay the high premiums,” he added.

The Sierra Leonean president, himself an erudite insurance practitioner, said if the insurance profession should be at the centre of the new economy of growth, inclusion and protection, the practitioners must be transcended this mentality.

He said the insurance practitioners must seek out the various options for including the struggling worker, trader and ordinary citizen in national health insurance schemes.

Insurers’ credit union makes waves despite teething challenges

The credit union of the insurers has made some progress and registered achievement within one year of its establishment despite facing some difficulties in the beginning. 

The Insurance Association of The Gambia Cooperative Credit Union (IAGCCU) on Friday held its maiden annual general meeting (AGM) at the Laico Atlantic Hotel in Banjul where the executive of the union disclosed to the members the modest achievements made by the union in the face of adversities.

The executive members of the association said they found it difficult initially to have the confidence of the insurers to be members of the credit union.

Lamin Yarboe, chairman of the executive committee of the credit union, said that at the beginning, they found it very difficult even to have working capital for the credit union. 

“We approached all the companies in the industry but none of them was willing to give us the needed money,” he said. 

He noted that the one-year journey was not very smooth but by dint of hard work, dedication and determination to succeed, coupled with the support of the members of the credit union, they were able to make it.

Mr Yarboe thanked Henry Jawo, secretary general of the Insurance Association of The Gambia (IAG), for his support, words of courage and wisdom during the difficult times of the credit union.

“When we started the credit union, we did not have a penny but thank God today we are giving loans, which is a testimony of how far we have gone,”  said Raymond Ceesay, vice chairman of the credit union.

The treasurer of the credit union, Sirrah Jammeh, said the total savings of the union for the year under review is D220,200. 

She said the credit union has started giving loans and gave D81,400 in 2012, and from January to 15 February 2013 it has disbursed more than D90,000 as loan.

The byelaws of the IAGCCU state that members are only entitled to loans or withdrawals after six months of regular savings, and the loans of the credit union attract an interest rate of 1.25% per month.  All the loans given by the credit union as of now are on short- and medium-term basis.

GTBank team crash insurers in friendly match

Guaranty Trust Bank Gambia Limited on Friday defeated by one goal to nil the team of the Insurance Association of The Gambia (IAG), which comprised insurance practitioners from various insurance companies.

Played at the Father Gough Sports Complex in Manjai Kunda, both the first and the second halves of the match were dominated by GTBank, who played the insurance practitioners like professionals against amateurs. 

The insurers justified this by saying the bankers usually train together hence they have that collective fitness.

However, the banks in the country operate six days in a week while the insurance companies only operate for five days so they have more days to train than the bankers.

The bankers scored their first goal in the 15th minute of play but this was ruled out by the central referee as off-side. 

The first half ended goalless, as the bankers failed to take advantage of their numerous goal-scoring opportunities created. 

'Poor public perception of insurance caused by lack of knowledge'

Mr Jagana
President of Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The poor public image of the insurance industry is due to the fact that people do not have much knowledge about insurance and even some of the people who are purportedly knowledgeable on the subject, by being insured, do not read to know the terms and conditions of their policy hence do not know what is covered and what is not, the president of the GCCI has said.

Speaking at a forum on the “Contribution of insurance stakeholders towards eradicating the poor public image of the industry” organized by the Insurance Association of The Gambia as part of a weeklong sensitization campaign dubbed Insurance Awareness Week, Mr Muhammed Jagana of the Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the majority of policyholders take an insurance cover just because they are required by law to insure their vehicles, or require insurance coverage for visa applications.

Weeklong insurance awareness campaign kick-starts today

A weeklong sensitization campaign that seeks to further increase the understanding of the general public of insurance and insurance policies to lay the foundation for building a trusting relationship between insurance providers and the public has started in earnest.

Organised by the Insurance Association of The Gambia (IAG), as part of its information, education and clarification programme, the Insurance Awareness Week (IAW), which started today Monday, is an inspirational industry campaign which unites those who share an interest in elevating public awareness about the progress and benefits of The Gambia insurance industry.

The theme of this year’s edition, which is the third of its kind, is ‘Contribution of insurance stakeholders towards eradicating the poor public image of the industry’ and will run from 11 to 16 February 2013.

Like the previous editions of the campaign, this year the organizers said the campaign seeks to basically pave way for a more insurance responsive public by providing better understanding of insurance to the public thereby improving the public image of the industry hence developing public interest in insurance.

As part of the campaign, there will be a sponsored walk today starting from the International Insurance Company’s branch on Kairaba Avenue and ending at the head office of Capital Express Assurance Company located at Sankung Sillah Building along Kairaba Avenue, where statements will be delivered by various insurance technocrats.

IAG bolsters leadership skills of senior insurance practitioners

The Insurance Association of the Gambia on Friday commenced a two-day leadership retreat for managing directors and chief executive officers alongside other senior officials of various insurance companies in the country to equip them with advanced leadership and communications skills so as effectively and efficiently lead, motivate and maximise team performance.

The retreat, which also drew participants from the Central Bank of The Gambia including the Commissioner of Insurance, Pa Alieu Sillah, was conducted by the Executive Group, Gambia-based international consulting firm, and held at the Kairaba Beach Hotel in Kololi.

It was meant to augment the knowledge and skills of the senior insurance practitioners in order to broaden their understanding of best practices in leadership and communication with a view to attune some attitudes towards performance as well service oriented culture.

Strategies to sanitize insurance industry discussed

delegates at the conference

Insurance professionals from across West Africa recently converged in The Gambia to discuss strategies to clean their industry of unprofessional and unethical insurance institutions and practitioners who are said to be partly responsible for the slow growth and development of the industry in the sub-region.

“Professional and Ethical Behaviour in the Insurance Industry” was the discussion topic at the annual general meeting and educational conference of the West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA) hosted in The Gambia by the Insurance Association of The Gambia (IAG) from 15 to 17 April at the Kairaba Beach Hotel in Senegambia.

The discussion was centred on how to root out all those people who are behaving in an unprofessional and unethical manner in the insurance industry.

Speaking on the occasion, the president of the Insurance Association of the Gambia (IAG), said the theme of the conference is indeed interesting and appropriate considering the scale and scope of professional deception and ethical misconduct in the financial system in recent times. 

Gambia Hosts AGM of sub-regional Insurance Association

The 34^th annual general meeting and educational conference of the West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA) will be held in the Gambia from 15 to 17 April this year, William B. Coker, secretary general and chief executive officer of the sub-regional insurance association, has revealed.

The theme of the conference, to be held at the Kairaba Beach Hotel in Senegambia, is “Professional and Ethical Behaviour in the Insurance Industry”. 

About 200 delegates, including representatives of various insurance companies in the sub-region, insurance brokers, and reinsurance companies as well as observers from all over the world are expected to grace the annual rotating conference.

Mr Coker, CEO/Secretary General of WAICA

Sunday, 15 April, is the arrival of the delegates, who will be treated to a welcome cocktail in the evening, and the conference proper takes place on 16 and 17 April.

Mr Coker, a Gambian, says this year the conference will discuss professionalism and ethical behaviour because these issues worry not only the insurance industry but other industries as well.  

“So as far as the insurance industry is concerned, we want to see how we can root out all those people who are behaving in an unprofessional manner, in an unethical manner because those are the few people that give any industry a bad name,” Mr Coker said. “So we are here to discuss that particular aspect of our work (insurance work) and see how best we can ostracize any such person or companies that are not behaving professionally and are dragging down the profession.”

Insurance practitioners want self-regulation

Insurance practitioners in The Gambia are calling for the regulation of the insurance industry to be severed from the Central Bank “in order to give the industry it deserved focus and attention”.



Mr Jawo

 Henry Jawo, executive secretary of the Insurance Association of The Gambia, said this is necessary in order to enhance and maintain efficient, safe and stable insurance market and to promote growth and healthy competition in the sector.

Though the Constitution of The Gambia mandated the Central Bank of The Gambia to direct and regulate the financial industry, including insurance industry, “for the interest of the economic development of the country”, many insurance technocrats observed that the Bank is more focused on regulating the banking industry than insurance industry hence the need for the establishment of an independent insurance commission – a specialized autonomous body for the regulation of the insurance industry. 

Insurers showcase indispensable role of insurance in economic development

 The Insurance Association of The Gambia (IAG) have recently dedicated a whole week, 19 – 25^th February, to increase the general public’s understanding of insurance and insurance policies so as to showcase the crucial and potential roles that the industry plays economic development.

A series of activities were held as part of the Insurance Awareness Week geared towards drawing the public’s attention to the noble profession of insurance in order to contribute in providing better understanding of basic insurance and to develop public interest on insurance so as to pave way for a more insurance responsive public.

This is among the many steps that the IAG have taken towards erasing the poor public image that the Gambia insurance industry has been suffering from over the years despite the critical roles that it plays in economic development. 

Gambia: Insurers start weeklong awareness creation campaign

The Insurance Association of the Gambia (IAG) today, Monday, starts its annual weeklong sensitization campaign that seeks to further increase the general public’s understanding of insurance and insurance policies in order to lay foundation for building a trusting relationship between insurance providers and the public.

It’s the second edition of the Insurance Awareness Week which is part of IAG’s information, education and clarification programme that seeks to increase awareness of the public about the progress and benefits of The Gambia insurance industry.

Mr Henry Jawo, executive secretary of the IAG, said the insurance awareness week focuses attention on creating improved public relations and offers the general public the opportunity to be part of its educational activities from dynamic lectures and presentations on various issues about insurance in the country. 

New Secured Ecowas Brown Card Takes Effect January 2012

Gambian motorists and travellers to Senegal and other West African countries have been called upon to take note of the newly updated and secured version of the ECOWAS Brown Card, which will come into effect on 1 January 2012, the Gambia National Bureau of the ECOWAS Brown card Insurance Scheme has stated.

Front Face of the New Secured Brown Card

The ECOWAS Brown Card allows the free movement of people and goods within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).  The card provides compensation to victims of motor vehicle accidents, which may occur while travelling within the ECOWAS sub-region.  It also provides insurance cover for third-party liability risks relating to accidents resulting in death and /or bodily injury and property damage.

Back Side of the New Secured Card

According to Henry Jawo, secretary general of the Gambia National Bureau of the ECOWAS Brown Card Insurance Scheme, the rationale behind the introduction of the new card is because the old card was easily being forged, as many instances fake card have been discovered in the region. This necessitated the introduction of a new card with improved security features.

Takaful to improve its model, hit the market with ground-breaking initiatives

By Lamin Jahateh, The Gambian Banker, Banjul Takaful Gambia Limited is poised to further improve on its operations and introduce innovative and ground-breaking initiatives after a-two member delegation of the company returned from Sudan, the father of Islamic insurance in the world, where they were exposed to improved ways of Islamic insurance. Pic: (Left to Right) Takaful MD Mr Joof, and Head of Operations Mr Marong in Shiekan Insurance Life section The Managing Director and Head of Operations of Takaful, Mr. Momodou Joof, and Mr. Adama Marong respectively recently returned to Banjul after a two week working visit to Shiekan Insurance and Reinsurance Company Limited in Sudan.  The aim of the visit, among other things, was to familiarize themselves with the operations of the company and to learn best practices from them so as to replicate it in The Gambia in order to take Takaful’s operations a notch-higher. “We had learnt a great deal of weight to improve on our model and we promised our participants and the whole country at large that we are coming to apply a little bit of changes into our model to make it more transparent, more viable and more profitable,” the Managing Director said.  “I cannot reveal everything to you at this point but I can tell you we are looking at a possibility where even the board of the company will include representative of the clients, the participants who gave us their money, so that they know how much we are making, what we are doing, and also to know our mission and vision.” He continued:  “Again as part of the changes to the model, we are saying not only those who do not suffer accident in the year will benefit from the profit of the company.  As Islamic insurance belongs to the policyholders, those who insured with us, when that is the case if there is any profit generated it must reach everybody whether you suffered an accident or not in the year, because it was not self designed for you to get involved in an accident.  Thus, profit generated by the company in 2011 will be distributed to all our policyholders even those who suffered losses during the period will still be invited to participate to the profit that we generated.” Mr Joof said his three-year old company is coming up in a greater grand style to prove to “this nation that Islam has it all” and that the beauty can only be found best in it. Products to roll out The two-week visit to Sudan, which was fully funded by Shiekan Insurance and Reinsurance Company Limited - there host in Sudan, serves as a morale booster for Takaful as the management has revealed plans to inject new policies in addition to the existing ones “in order to make sure that we cover more people”. Takaful MD said:  “Among the things that we had learnt from that ‘mature market’ is that if we limited our self to providing the usual classes of insurance like motor insurance, general accident, fire insurance etc, we are only addressing the wealthy members of the society, those that are rich enough to think of insurance.  So we have to think of ways to actually consider how to operate in such a way that we accommodate SMEs, those poor members of the society who are doing business but at a very low scale, how to reduce our premium and give them cover that will benefit them. Now we are coming with policies that will make it possible for us to cover every cadre of the society including the poor members.  So now we are not only leaving it to that traditional system where only the rich can afford insurance, we want to bring it as low as covering the poor members of the society.” He disclosed that they are also looking at the possibility of coming up with an agricultural insurance policy.  Agriculture has been a key issue of attention to the government, but unfortunately there is no insurance policy to back it up, now Takaful Gambia is looking into the possibility of coming with a policy on agricultural insurance in order to make farming a more sustainable and lucrative venture. Mr. Joof, who recently served as a facilitator to the ‘regional course on rudiments of Islamic banking’ organized by West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management and held Lagos, Nigeria, said: “We will not also relent in our endeavor to make sure that we are not limited to Gambia, this is the first Islamic insurance company to register in West Africa and we must make sure that we give the market all that they need.  We are even looking at the establishment of a live section, where we will cover live insurance.  We are also looking into the possibility of expanding out of our national territory; these are all part of our plans.” More profit to distribute Takaful is the first insurance company in The Gambia to pioneer the process of profit sharing at the end of the term.  At the end of 2008 there was no profit for the company to distribute, as promised, to its clients, due to obvious reason that they started operations in that year and had many establishment expenses.  In 2009 the company distributed over D2 million to its policyholders.  “So we are very happy to say that we had delivered in 2009.  Since inception, we promised the people, we promised the market that this concept of Islamic insurance is a very fair concept whereby returns or profits generated by the company belongs to those who provided the capital, the insures,” said Mr. Joof, adding that apart from the D2 million distributed to the policyholders, the company also distributed ‘Zakat’, alms, between 8 high schools as part of its corporate social responsibility.  He said: “Though we are yet to distribute the profit for 2010, I can certainly tell you that it will be higher than the D2 million and we are working hard to pay it earlier this year.” Commenting on their trip, Adama Marong, Head of Operations, said Sudan is where Islamic insurance started in the whole world, “so we feel it necessary that if you want to do what is correct you have to go to the root that is why we visited Sudan”.  “Upon our arrival there we found out that Islamic insurance is doing well there in fact the whole system there is Islamic financing.  We visited many places there including their refinery, and the national insurance company that is owned by the government,” he said. He said the visit to Sudan has further enhanced and deepen their knowledge of Islamic insurance.  “We had copied best practices from them, in terms of their operations, policies and the like, that we are going to replicate in the Gambia.  You know the practice of insurance is such that it’s not static, it should be flexible.  We have come with policies from Sudan that we will modify to suit the need of the society in The Gambia and this is what we will embark on in not distant future,” Mr. Marong explained. He added:  “We are going to roll out many innovative products that will really suit our customers and there are many things in the offing all for the benefit of the customers so all that want to say is that let people come to Takaful and they will really enjoy the value for money.”

Capital Express Assurance to provide life insurance to low-income earners

By LAMIN JAHATEH, Banjul Capital Express Assurance (Gambia) Limited has planned to aggressively promote life insurance penetration at the rural level through its suites of micro-insurance products. The focus on the rural areas is in cognizance of the fact that life insurance is beneficial for all and has to be made accessible and affordable for low- and medium-income earners. Pic: Managing Director (Mr. Adegboye in the middle) & Board Members This is part of the company’s business generation strategies for 2011, which include massive decentralization of quality life insurance services throughout the length and breadth of The Gambia. In a press conference held on Monday at the company’s head office at Sankung Sillah Building along Kairaba Avenue, Mr. Kunle Adegboye, managing director of Capital Express - the only specialised life assurance company in The Gambia, said that as part of the strategies, his company has started a massive agency network process by recruiting different cadres of agents for distribution of the company’s products to the people of The Gambia. “We have recently completed a deal with one of the largest banks in The Gambia and as part of the partnership agreement, we will have a table or a kind of small office where we can meet the insurance needs of the people, which means you don’t have to come to the head office to get your life product, you don’t have to come here to get your claim paid; right at the bank you can do your insurance transactions,” Mr Adegboye said. “We are not stopping at the banks; we are also going to get into partnership with the big supermarkets and any public place. Anywhere people frequently visit to get one form of product or service, we are going to partner with them. All this is geared towards taking insurance to the doorsteps of our clients.  In this case, anywhere that Capital Express has no branch you will see a branch of that bank, so our clients can easily walk into this bank and do their insurance transaction.  I don’t want to name the bank because they have not yet announced it.” Capital Express is the first insurance company in The Gambia to include a customer service department in its operation. With products like guarantee tuition protection plan, future income plan, annuity plan policy, credit life assurance policy, guaranteed education protection, universal life assurance plan, and personal protection plan, Mr Adegboye noted that his company is sure of providing a world class insurance services that will make a turning point in the country's insurance industry. He said the three risks – the risk of dying too soon, the risk of living too long, and the risk of becoming disabled - can all be adequately covered through any one of these pool of products. Mr Adegboye assured every individual that Capital Express will always remain true to its policy of ensuring that whoever has a genuine claim with the company is paid without hassle. “And also no matter what kind of situation they are in, we will try our level best to resolve it for them,” he said. “Our new state-of-the-art insurance software will be launched early next year,” the Capital Express MD said, adding that the company is standing on a solid rock of a high calibre of human resource with a modern sophisticated technology. “Work is already at an advanced stage on the deployment of the application and this will go-live early in the New Year,” Mr Adegboye says. The software is in line with the mission of the company, which is to provide wealth management and risk protection services to at least one member of every household where they are licensed to operate using the most sophisticated technology and manpower. With this software in place, any prospective customer of Capital Express can just walk into any business centre, have access to the internet and will be able to have a policy of Capital Express within 24 hours.  Again the existing policyholder who has access to the internet can be able to access his records, know the state of his policy and anything that he wants to know about his policy, just with a click of a button. In line with its vision to be a world class financial services provider, the company, apart from it base in the Nigerian city of Lagos, has full-fledged subsidiaries in five African countries, namely Ghana, Liberia, Kenya, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. ”By the grace of God, next year we will open other offices in South Africa and Mauritius,” Mr Adegboye disclosed. Niyi Onifade, Managing Director of Capital Assurance Global Franchise Ltd based in Lagos, Nigeria, says the focus of Capital Express (G) Ltd is to satisfy the life insurance needs of the people of The Gambia. He told journalists that the company is in The Gambia for the benefit of her people: “We are not in The Gambia just to make money and go; no. Our focus is to do business here, make money, provide employment for the Gambians and invest money we make in The Gambia to take the country to the next level.” Mr Onifade, who is a member of the Board of Directors of Capital Express (G) Limited, says he is convinced that The Gambia is a country they can make remarkable achievements. Since The Gambia is a predominantly Muslim state, Mr Onifade notes, Capital Express will introduce a product that will be in line with Islamic injunction. The parent company of Capital Express Assurance (G) Limited, Capital Express Assurance Group in Lagos, Nigeria, has an authorised capital of N7.5 billion. The company is reckoned to be the fastest growing life assurance company in Nigeria.