The Ghana Insurers’ Association (GIA) has urged the National Insurance Commission (NIC) to develop capital modules for the insurance industry. The President of GIA, Aretha Duku, said this will go a long way to improve insurance penetration in the country.
She said, “I think the commissioner did say that he would engage the industry in talks in terms of whether to increase the minimum capital or not and we are all for that but we are also very mindful that we need to make sure the capital doesn’t become idle.”
Madam Duku said, “That is to say, we should look at each company, have some sort of a capital module in place, that can help us ascertain whether company A in terms of the risks they are accepting and the liabilities on their book, the capital they have is adequate or not and if it’s not then so be it, it needs to be increased.”
She said, “Similarly, you can also have another company who might have the same level of capital but might not have utilized the capital. So we don’t want the case where capital becomes idle as per the risks and businesses one is underwriting.”
She was speaking to JoyBusiness at the sidelines of the maiden edition of the National General Insurance Conference under the theme: Transforming the General Insurance Industry in Ghana through Self-Regulation, Financial Capacity, and Business Innovation.
Statistics from the NIC indicates that less than 30% of Ghanaians have insurance cover.
The commissioner of insurance, Justice Ofori, called on the players in the industry to adopt innovative ways to deepen penetration in the insurance sector.
The National Insurance Commission earlier in a meeting with the Finance Ministry proposed a 100% increase in the capital requirement for insurance companies. This the commissioner said will help to improve the insurance penetration rate of 3% in the country.
Credit: ModernGhana.com
