Business Briefs
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THE Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, CIIN, has said that the new flexible foreign exchange policy being championed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, will boost insurance business. Funmi Babington-Ashaye, CIIN deputy president, disclosed this at a press briefing held in Lagos, saying that the previous policy regime have dampened the operations and security of the insurance industry.
She also said that with the economy on the edge of recession and inflation rising daily, many corporate organisations and individuals were already cutting insurance from their needs. According to her, a lot of insurance companies were not able to cede about 80 to 90 percent of oil and gas and aviation reinsurance premium to overseas reinsurers.
Babington-Ashaye noted that but for the recent intervention of the new forex regime, the inability of Nigerian insurers to cede the large risks abroad was a disaster waiting to happen. She said, “Usually insurance companies keep a very small proportion of large risks like oil and gas, aviation premium in this market but many of them were not been able to cede reinsurance premium to overseas reinsurers.
“With the new policy, we believe that forex will be available at any time to any country or individual at the rate determined by demand and supply and it should be able to resolve this problem. In addition, claims have been mounting and we had to pay based on adjusted figure. The prices were going up, big claims were coming in and it was becoming an issue for us.”
Isioma Chukwuma, CIIN president, said the present economic situation of the country has hindered the commencement of construction works on the institute’s Victoria Island property. She said the industry would not allow the poor economic situation to deter operators from making progress, adding that the Institute has secured all relevant documents and government permits for the continuation of work at the site.
— Jul 4, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
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