‘Insurance industry short of professionals’

Ayeleso Oladele, Lagos

Bode Akinboye, GMD, Standard
Alliance InsuranceOut of over 5,000 insurance professionals that are needed to drive the industry within the next five years, the industry can, as at present boast of only 2,000 professionals, leaving a vacuum of almost 3,000 professionals, result of a research has disclosed.

According to the Director General, Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, (CIIN), Mr. Adegboyega Adepegba, who disclosed this at a seminar organised by Bailey Professional Training and Development Centre in Ijebu Ode, Ogun State, the result of a recent research by the institutehas revealed the ugly trend. This position, he said left much to be thought of about the Nigerian insurance sector.

Meanwhile, the Former Commissioner for Insurance, Chief 'Dipo Bailey, who lamented the rate at which students fail their Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination said that by projection of both public and private Nigerian Universities today, there are indications that in the next five years, there would be over seven million students that would not have access to university education.

Speaking also at the occassion, Mr. Olutoyin Adepate, the Registrar and Chief Executive, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), while commending Chief Bailey for the initiation, revealed that despite all odds in Nigeria, Nigeria is the only country in the world that has Petroleum Accounting Standard.

He however, encouraged school leaving certificate holders not to allow themselves to be victims of JAMB failure, and rather than sitting at home after the Senior Certificate Examination should proceed to sit for professional examinations such as that of the CIIN so that within the next five years, Nigeria would have been able to produce enough professionals that would fill those vacuum as presently revealed in the said report.

Standard Alliance Insurance capital base hits 25bn

Ayeleso Oladele, Lagos

Indications that the insurance sector is walking tall to overtake the banks in the short run are fast emerging as the Standard Alliance Insurance Plc is strongly pioneering a capital base which currently exceeds N25bn.

The company had set out in March this year to raise N18bn in the offer which is still adjudged to be the biggest so far by any insurance company and it ended up recording a 106 per cent success amounting to over N20bn. Mr. Bode Akinboye, the company’s Group Managing Director, disclosed this at the weekend to a group of editors who called on him at his Victoria Island office in Lagos.

“I can authoritatively tell you that our capital base currently exceeds N25bn which means that we can rightly boast that we are stronger than some recapitalised banks in the country. This, I must confess to you, is a sign of what to expect from Standard Alliance Insurance Group in the short run,” Akinboye stated.

According to him, a good number of strategic local and international investors and institutions among which are Renaissance Capital Group, Stanlib Asset Management (South Africa), Enso Capital LLC (New York), Stanbic IBTC Pension Fund Administrator in addition to over 70,000 shareholders invested in SA Insurance Plc during the company’s recent public offer.

He said, “as a law-abiding corporate citizen, we could not make this public until now that the appropriate regulatory body has authenticated all the activities of the public offer.

“I must confess that I am the happiest Group Managing Director in the insurance industry going by the investments made by most notable local and international organizations as well as the massive response by the Nigerian investing public during the offer which in my estimation, is a practical indication of the wide acceptance of our brand locally and across our shores,” he explained.

He assured that “unlike before where allotments of shares were not full, we have approval to allot full shares to shareholders,” stating, however, that it is only allotments to the bigger investors that will be slightly affected.

While stating that the company’s total assets now stand at N7.388bn as against N3.162bn in 2006, Akinboye told the visiting editors that “in line with management’s commitment to continue to adopt international best practices in running affairs of the company, we participated in another rating exercise conducted by Global Credit Rating (GCR) of South Africa.

“For the second year running, the company has been rated ‘A’ with an improved 285 per cent international solvency ratio. The rating further re-enhanced our stable position and improved the financial strength of the company,” he noted.

He further disclosed that the company recently renewed its technical treaty with MAPFRE Assistencia of Spain to further position it for the travel insurance business. According to him, “due to the robustness and varieties of cover available for Africa, EU and wordwide, our company now stands a good chance of generating additional foreign currency denominated income.”