The Commissioner for Insurance, National Insurance Commission, Mr. Fola Daniel, has called for more integration of insurance activities in the Economic Community of West African States.

A statement from NAICOM said Daniel made the call on Tuesday during the inaugural forum of insurance stakeholders in the West African Monetary Zone, made up of West Africa Insurance Companies’ Association member countries and Guinea-Conakry, which it sponsored in conjunction with ECOWAS commission, in Abuja.

“I am particularly delighted at this bold initiative promoted by the West African Monetary Institute and the WAICA that is expected will take adequate measures towards the deepening and harmonisation of past efforts at integration of the insurance sector in West Africa,” Daniel said.

He worried that insurance was not very popular in the sub-region for various reasons, which are: low-level of financial literacy, lack of adequate awareness of insurance mechanism and poor perception of the industry.

The commissioner observed that there was an increasing cross-border insurance practice in the sub-region in tandem with the collective quest for integration.

Insurance regulatory bodies in the sub-region, he added, were, therefore, poised to engage in cross-border collaboration and exchange of information and data.

This, he explained, was to ensure that insurance practice engendered trust and acceptance in the sub-region through enforcement of rules and regulations.

The commissioner said that at the end of the forum, stakeholders would have succeeded in kick-starting the process of integrating the WAMZ insurance sector.

He added that the forum would be able to develop a roadmap to drive integration in the insurance sector in the WAMZ; streamline insurance integration efforts in the sub-region; propose the constitution of a council to drive the integration of insurance in the sub-region; and propose the establishment of a technical committee that will serve as an advisory body to the council on insurance integration in the WAMZ.

Source: Punch (by Nike Popoola)