By Elliot WILLIAMS
Ghana Reinsurance PLC, the largest reinsurance firm domiciled in the country, will next week host a five-day seminar at the Volta Serine Hotel, Ho for insurance practitioners drawn from all around francophone Africa who represent companies that give the Ghanaian reinsurer business or at least have the potential to do so.
The topic for the seminar is: Reinsurance Accounting (La Comtabilite’ de Reassurance).
The state owned insurer is organizing 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, by increasing its penetration in the francophone insurance markets around the continent.
It is also a subtle tactic to enhance its corporate reputation among the insurance companies that send participants to the event and who also are among Ghana Re’s target institutional clientele.
Altogether, 60 participants are expected from insurance underwriters across 15 countries, of which 14 are francophone while the other is Ghana itself – represented by Visal Reinsurance Brokers which has a dedicated desk for attracting reinsurance business from francophone African countries.
The francophone countries from which insurance companies will be represented are: Mauritius; Togo; DR Congo; Cote d’Ivoire; Mali; Equatorial Guinea; Senegal; Cameroun; Benin; Morocco; Burkina Faso; Madagascar; Guinea; and Congo.
The aim of the seminar is to build underwriting capacity among the participating companies with regards to their ability to pass on part of the risk they are taking on to their reinsurers.
To this end the seminar will take participants through a series of technical topics relating to reinsurance contracts and how they can be used to spread the risks taken up by the primary underwriting firms in the policies they accept to issue.
Participants will be addressed by Seth Aklasi , Ghana Re’s Managing Director at the opening ceremony and by Elizabeth Ashie, the company’s Head of Francophone Department at the closing ceremony.
Topics to be discussed are: Types of insurance; Application of proportional treaty clauses; Application of non-proportional treaty clauses; and Indexation and stabilization clause. The seminar will also include practical and group exercises.
The seminar’s facilitator is Richard Ayin-Akakpo, who is Togolese. A former Head of Ghana Re’s Francophone Department, he has extensive experience in the CIMA market zone, both in insurance and reinsurance.
