Shepherds Insurance looks to new foreign deal for re-insurance brokerage

Owners of Shephereds Insurance Brokers Limited say its new partnership deal with Afro-Asian Insurance Services Limited with focus to getting covers for terrorism, kidnapping and other emerging risks for the local market is a dream fulfilled.

This development, they say, is not only going to strengthen the local market and increase retention capacity, but because it has become extremely necessary in view of growing incidence of terrorism and kidnapping in certain regions of the country.

Oladipo Baily, former commissioner for Insurance and executive vice chairman, Shepherds Insurance Brokers Limited said it has been the company’s plan to have reinsurance partners with stronghold in UK. “Our major objective was to take advantage of this partnership to explore the new risks areas, which we do not have the capacity to provide locally and overtime build this experience with professionals in the developed market.”

“We can no longer pretend to be unaware of the challenges confronting us, even though it was not part of us, but is glaring in our faces that we are in for it with growing incidence of Boko Haram, so, we must start to provide for it, he noted.

Chris Davis and Peter De Kersaint Giraudeau, both senior brokers and account executives who led the Afro-Asian Insurance Services team to Nigeria on business mission said there is huge potential for growth of insurance and reinsurance in the Nigeria market.

They said the though the issue of terrorism, kidnapping in the country are bad developments, insurance coming to absorb the shock by providing risk in these areas would help stabilise the economy and make the environment conducive for local and foreign investments. If there is no insurance and an effective means of compensation in the event of loss, many would not feel comfortable to do business here, Chris said.

According to them, Nigeria is going to be the hub to penetrate other parts of Africa, where you have similar incidence particularly political violence and piracy, which we also have a lot of expertise on.

“Africa is now the new Eldorado, having witnessed a lot of losses and declining growth in Europe, America and Asian countries.” There are lots of opportunities for us in these emerging risks given our professional experience and we also want to add value to the Nigerian economy, they stated. On what the challenge in providing this cover for local market will be, the Afro-Asian’s said the biggest challenge may be pricing of the risk, which they noted would be sorted out in the process as this is not unique to Nigeria.

Shepherds Insurance Brokers started operation as insurance consultants in 1979 with the name Median and Shepherds Nigeria and was registered to operate as insurance brokers in 1980, with the original name changed shortly after to Shepherds Insurance Brokers.

The company is actively involved in all classes of insurance. It has served and is still serving a good number of clients drawn from the private and public sectors including the government and oil and energy sectors. Shephereds determined to provide utmost and very efficient services her clients locally and internationally, despite the size of the risks is now associated Afro-Asian Insurance services, a well established insurance and re-insurance broker in the United Kingdom.

Afro-Asian was formed in 1988 and has since grown its operations to become a leading provider of (re)insurance products to its expanding client base in the UK, Africa and Asian Markets. Afro-Asian is a Lloyds Broker, authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and is also a member of the British Insurance Brokers Association and International Member of the African Insurance Organisation(AIO).

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