The National Insurance Commission (NIC), The Ghana Insurers Association (GIA), The Ghana Insurance Brokers Association (GIBA), and the Ghana Insurance Awareness Coordinators Group (IACG) in partnership with the Programme for Sustainable Economic Development (PSED) of the German Development Co-operation (GIZ), are set to organise a week’s training to boost the capacity of insurance agents in the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions.

The 6-day training which will take place at the Noda Hotel in Kumasi from the 18th-23rd December, will see both life and non-life insurance agents, insurance brokers, Bancassurance (banks that sell insurance products) and micro-insurance agents build their capacity on principles governing insurance, knowledge of the insurance industry, selling techniques, principles of customer knowledge, complaints handling techniques, and other relevant areas.

In all, the training will involve 250 agents from 30 life insurance companies; 27 non-life insurance companies; 45 insurance brokers; 6 micro-insurance companies, and 3 Bancassurance companies, all active in the two regions.

As the first line of interaction with the public, agents play a key role in attracting customers to take up insurance and risk policies. Insurance penetration in Ghana is very low. Some of the major causes of the low patronage of insurance is inadequate public education on the benefits and general negative perception the public has of insurance industry.

Currently, insurance penetration (the number of the population who own an insurance policy) is less than two percent, according to the National Insurance Commission (NIC), the industry regulator. This figure is very low compared to the risk factors that Ghanaians are exposed to on a daily basis. This year alone, various fires in many markets have seen traders lose millions of Ghana cedis, unfortunately some of these market traders did not insure their wares.

The training is to help build the capacity of the agents and officers in the insurance distribution channel to enable them boost insurance coverage in their respective areas of operation so that clients who face emergencies like fire will have some cushion.

Mr Isaac Agyapong, Technical Advisor at the GIZ said “As a development partner, the GIZ works to promote sustainable economic development in the countries in which we operate. Insurance is important to providing a safety net especially for the poorer segments of society.

Naturally, you may not know when a disaster will occur so it is better to have some form of insurance policy in place so that when that unfortunate disaster takes place, you can have some protection and that is why GIZ is part of the programme.”

The capacity building project will be rolled in phases to cover the entire country and this will be the maiden one.

The GIA is the umbrella body of all insurance and reinsurance companies in Ghana. At the end of the training, proficiency certificates will be given to the participants.

Laine Services Limited are the Project Consultants, while GIZ are the Project partners and sponsors. Mr Kingsley Kwesi Kwabahson, Acting CEO of the GIA and Mr Wilson Tei of the IACG will be the Project Managers for the capacity training programme.