Brokers seek to end capital flight on reinsurance commission

Insurance brokers in Africa have blamed continues capital flight on reinsurance commission from the continent on the inability of it’s over twenty-year-old-body, African Insurance Brokers’ Association (AIBA) to stabilise and serve the purpose of its establishment.

AIBA is body uniting insurance and reinsurance brokers in the African market under the umbrella of African Insurance Organisation.

The brokers’ position is that since not many insurance brokers in the continent can strongly compete with their counterparts in the international market as result of lack of capacity, coming as group under AIBA would have provided a united front to compete effectively, but this unfortunately has not been possible.

“It’s sad. It’s a very big shame that after more than 20 years AIBA has not been able to serve that purpose on which it was established by the AIO.”

Feyisayo Soyewo, immediate past president of AIBA told journalist in Cairo, Egypt that Africa is losing billions of dollars to international insurance and reinsurance brokers because of lack of capacity, skills and what it takes to deal with big ticket risks. According to him, this is why international brokers continue to operate seamlessly in our market with little or no competition from the indigenous players.

According to him, the challenge before now was that most of the AIBA membership were not registered with the AIO, so the AIO has began re-registration exercise to enlist AIBA members so that we can be more effective. This is why our scheduled meeting in Cairo could not hold as the members needed to complete their formal admission into AIO before playing any active role in AIBA.

Soyewo hinted that the next AIBA meeting has been scheduled to hold in Tunis in October during the AIO Reinsurance Conference, stating that there will also be election for a new executive.

“We are uniting our forces now. If we cannot individually combat, collectively we can form a body that can really have a share of what is generated in Africa.”

On the position of brokers in the Nigerian market, Soyewo noted that brokers are waxing stronger and taking their share of the market, saying “the regulation of insurance business in Nigeria today gives a sense of belonging to the insurance brokers, having said brokers must be involved in key accounts.

“Gradually, we are building capacity and with time we would be in position to increase our retention capacity and also compete effectively with our counterparts in the international market,” Soyewo stated.