By Elliot WILLIAMS
Ghana Reinsurance PLC, the largest reinsurance firm domiciled in the country, will this week host a one-week seminar for insurance practitioners drawn from all around Africa and beyond.
The state-owned insurer is organising the seminar as the latest event in its ongoing effort to build capacity in Africa’s insurance market, where Ghana Re has become a major player. It is also a subtle tactic to enhance its corporate reputation among the insurance companies that send participants to the event and who also make up Ghana Re’s target institutional clientele.
The theme for the seminar, which will run from Sunday, February 16 to Saturday, February 22 is ‘The Evolving Landscape of Engineering Insurance: The Reinsurance Perspective’. The event is being held at Volta Serene Hotel, Ho, which is the capital of the Volta Region.
This is expected to have a major positive impact on the capacity of Africa’s insurance industry to underwrite risks in highly technical aspects of economic activity, as engineering insurance is a specialised but highly important segment of insurance involving huge risks and, therefore, requiring prudent reinsurance to spread the risks being underwritten.
Altogether, 72 participants from 13 African countries and the Middle East were invited to the event. The overwhelming majority are from Ghana, which is contributing 43 participants.
The next largest contingent is from Liberia, with six participants. Three participants each were invited from Togo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroun. Two participants each have been drawn from Sudan and Egypt respectively. The rest of the African contingent comprise one participant from Nigeria and another one from Zimbabwe.
The other two participants drawn from outside Africa comprise one participant from Jordan and another from the United Arab Emirates.
The opening address will be delivered by Joseph Adom, the Deputy Managing Director of Ghana Re.
The two resource persons for the seminar both rank among the most highly accomplished and widely respected top-tier insurance professionals at Ghana Re.
One is Jonathan Kwame Kwakye, Head of International Operations, Anglophone Department at Ghana Re. With over 20 years experience in the reinsurance industry, he has served in various leadership roles in the company, including Head of Business Development.
He is a Chartered Insurer of the Chartered Insurance Institute, London and holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of Ghana and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Cape Coast. Instructively, he has received several awards from the Ghana Insurance College and obtained the highest scholastic award at the West African Insurance Institute in the Gambia in 2005.
The other is Augustine Joy Quainoo, an Underwriter and Risk Engineer at Ghana Re’s head office in Accra, where he is responsible for conducting pre-loss surveys for partners locally and internationally.
He has over 13 years’ experience in the insurance industry, coming on the back of four years spent in the telecommunications sector as a civil works supervisor.
He holds a B.Sc in Geodetic Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and both a Diploma and an Advanced Diploma in Insurance from the Ghana Insurance College and the Malta International Training Centre.
He is an associate member of both the Chartered Insurance Institute of Ghana and Risk Management from the Institutes Knowledge Group. Again, he holds a certificate in Insurance from the Chartered Insurance Institute, UK .
Both resource persons have been involved in delivering numerous seminars, workshops and training programmes on behalf of Ghana Re.
