Business News of Sunday, 29 January 2017
Source: citibusinessnews.com
2017-01-29
Russell Haresign, Country Manager, BIMA
Deepening education, enforcing collaboration and providing a strict legal framework will spur Ghana on to increase subscriptions for microinsurance, industry watchers have said.
Although Ghana is currently placed second to South Africa in terms of percentage of population covered by insurance, the analysts believe much could be attained if the aforementioned factors are taken seriously.
“One factor pining down microinsurance successes is education of clients; the lack of trust in insurance usually comes from poor education. Maybe people do not understand the policy and then they feel disappointed when it comes to claim payments,”
“The second is about collaboration; in my view, to get insurance working will involves getting businesses to come together,” Russel Haresign, Country Manager for BIMA told Citi Business News.
The 2012 Microinsurance Landscape survey revealed that 1.8 million representing 7% of the Ghanaian population of 25.4million as at that year had some form of microinsurance coverage.
In 2013, this figure increased to 3.1million representing 12% of the population in 2013 and 28% for the year 2014.
The number of lives and properties covered stood at 7.5 million in 2014.
The role of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in the industry has been a key enabler for these growth rates. Through partnerships with MNOs, MI providers reached 4.34 million lives (representing 58% of lives covered) in 2014.
Russel Haresign spoke to Citi Business News at the launch of a partnership between social enterprise firm, PEG (manufacturers of solar lamps for rural dwellers) which seeks to provide insurance for such categories of persons to be able to meet their needs in obtaining the lamps.
The insurance cover is underwritten by Prudential Life Insurance.
Its CEO, Emmanuel Mokobi Aryee also stressed the need for stricter regulations to facilitate the collection of premium and also protect the claim of customers.
“In other jurisdictions where government has enacted legislations and if you buy insurance and decide to pay through the bank and yet default during debit orders, your account attracts some form of charges to ensure discipline. Ghana could learn from some of these things tio aid premium collection in the microinsurance.”
