By Elliot WILLIAMS
Last week, the Ghana Insurance Association (GIA) held the 3rd edition of its series of annual international educational seminars in Accra.
The three-day seminar took place at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel under the theme: “Innovating Together – Building a Resilient Insurance Future”
The seminar was designed to help the insurance industry benchmark global standards with the aim of enabling it to contribute to Ghana’s overall economic growth and development.
It brought together some of the most skilled and experienced insurers and reinsurers in Ghana, along with several experts in relevant related fields such as marketing, corporate communications, economics, corporate management and information technology.
At the event insurer practitioners were asked to embrace innovation driven by technology in their efforts to make their products and services more relevant to the needs of their target markets and more efficiently delivered, thus increasing the insurance penetration rate in the country.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the President of the GIA, Seth Aklasi, asserted that “Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled tools “can process claims in real time, especially in the medium to short term” and that “AI can also assess accidents in real time and credit accounts instantly.”
Aklasi emphasized the need for the Ghanaian insurance industry to innovate to keep up with global trends. He stressed the need for the insurance industry to stay abreast of international best practices.
Ghana’s Deputy Insurance Commissioner, Bernard Ohemeng-Baah, concurred, saying that “At a time when many industries are being disrupted, you have chosen not to wait passively but to take charge – asking the right questions, challenging the status quo and pushing the boundaries of what is possible.”
He announced to participants at the seminar that the National Insurance Commission (NIC) has just launched the Inclusive Insurance Innovation Challenge in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, which is a signal of the insurance industry regulator’s readiness to support, partner and lead on innovation.
“We are living through a period of immense transformation” he noted. “Across Africa and beyond, the traditional insurance value chain is being reshaped – from product design and distribution, to claims management and customer engagement.
New models like usage-based insurance, parametric cover, and on-demand products are redefining expectations. Technologies such as generative AI, machine learning, and automation are creating exciting possibilities – delivering efficiencies, reducing fraud and improving the speed and quality of service.
“We must get better at modelling and pricing these risks so we can stay resilient as insurers. But just as importantly, we must embed Environmental Sustainability Guidelines (ESG) into our core operations – reducing our environmental footprint, strengthening our governance, and designing solutions that help communities adapt and thrive in a changing world.”
The event was jointly sponsored by 18 institutions that are active in Ghana’s insurance industry, comprising two reinsurance companies, eight general insurers, four life insurers, two insurance groups, one micro-insurer and one dedicated insurance activity consortium.
The sponsoring reinsurers were WAICA Re and Ghana Re. The general insurers were: Loyalty Insurance, SIC Insurance, Ghana Union Assurance, Enterprise Insurance, Priority Insurance, Millennium Insurance, Serene Insurance and Activa International Insurance. The life insurers were Impact Life, Quality Life, SIC Life and Enterprise Life.
The sponsoring insurance Groups were the Hollard Group and the Star Assurance Group. The micro-insurer was aYo.
The dedicated insurance consortium was the Ghana Oil and Gas Insurance Pool, which comprises the syndicate of general insurance companies that have banded together to insure high value oil and gas industry assets and risks in Ghana.
