Data from the National Insurance Commission, NIC, shows that Ghana’s insurance penetration and coverage remains quite low.
The Insurance Commission has thus reiterated its commitment to improve the trend in the next few years by implementing new initiatives; which includes the training of some ten thousand Ghanaian youth on insurance to offer different services.
As part of this, the Commission in collaboration with the National Insurance College, the Motor Traffic and Transport Department of the Ghana Police Service, and the National Service Secretariat, are embarking on an exercise to deploy a number of the youth on the streets to inspect and also educate people on the need to insure their vehicles.
The NIC is hopeful this new partnership will grow the industry significantly.
Speaking to Citi Business News, Kofi Baffour Nsenkyire, Ashanti Regional Manager of National Insurance Commission noted that, “According to records available to the National Insurance Commission, insurance penetration is currently about 1%. The Commissioner of Insurance together with the Ghana Insurance Association thinks something needs to be done about it. There is more room for improvement. As a result of this, the Commission has taken it upon itself through the Commissioner of Insurance to liaise with the Ghana Insurance College to train ten thousand youth in insurance. The Commission is sponsoring the programme.”
“At the end of the day, what the Commission expects is that a lot more youth who are the next generation, will understand and appreciate the importance of insurance and through that it will also educate the uninformed public on the importance and the need for insurance to the individual, the family and the nation as well. People are beginning to understand and appreciate insurance, but we think that the penetration needs to increase more than what we are experiencing now. We think that, looking at the initiative that the Commission has taken, it will get better,” he added.
The Director of the Ghana Insurance College, Richard Okyere, says insurance is key to national development; hence the need for all stakeholders to pay attention to the sector.
“With insurance worldwide, if you want to know a country’s advancement in terms of growth, insurance is very key. With the insurance advancement, there would be a lot of opportunities. There would be a lot of advancement in the financial sector. So , with this training, the claim management would be good. People will know when to claim and when not to claim, what type of policy to purchase to get a particular claim etc. These are some of the basic knowledge that participants will get”.
The NIC seeks to train ten thousand youth; out of which some four thousand five hundred, including national service personnel, have been trained.
The service personnel will be on the road to inspect motor insurance as well as work alongside MTTD officers to reduce road traffic accidents.
The National Service Secretariat says the initiative will potentially help to create job opportunities for many graduates after their national service as some person would likely be retained as police officers.