IBAG trains insurance professionals on marine cargo insurance

The Insurance Brokers' Association of Ghana (IBAG) on Thursday, October 13 started a two-day training workshop for insurance professionals, particularly Brokers, to enable active participation in the full implementation of the marine cargo business.

The training workshop which is being organised on the theme “Essentials of Marine Cargo Insurance” is aimed at building the capacity of its members. It is expected to cover various aspects including the Cargo clauses, Modern trends and Global issues on Cargo Insurance.

Speaking at the opening ceremony for the training in Accra at Mensvic Hotel on Thursday morning, IBAG President Mr. Shaibu Ali underscored the importance of the workshop, indicating that there is a lot of potential in the marine space that needs to be tapped.

He explained that through the workshop, IBAG is seeking to position brokers and writers to take advantage of the huge potential of marine insurance that can overtake motor insurance.

“The key take from this workshop is going to be for the practitioners to go out there and tell people that marine insurance needs to be done and done locally. However, they can only do that if they know what Marine insurance is.

“We are equipping them with the basics of marine insurance so that when they go out there they will be confident enough to talk to marine insurers,” Mr. Shaibu Ali explained.

He further admonished participants of the workshop to take full advantage of the training and capitalise on the new laws on cargo import to explore the marine space.

“The new laws say that if you default and you don’t insure your cargo you the importer you can go to jail for up to three years. So once the law has been reshaped like this, it now behoves writers to position ourselves to make sure that we rekindle all the expertise and knowledge in marine insurance to be able to better serve the customers. That is the essence of this training,” the President of the Insurance Brokers Association of Ghana indicated.

Delivering a speech as a representative of the Commissioner of Insurance, Dr. Justice Ofori, Head of Reinsurance and Anti-Money Laundering at the National Insurance Commission, Mrs. Esther Armah said the decision by IBAG to organise the training is apt.

She said although the insurance industry is doing well, it must develop marine insurance to do even better.

“With the support of the Marine Protocol, Marine and Aviation Insurance Database (MAID), and more importantly your expertise, the future looks promising.

“On this bright note, I applaud IBAG and Mr. Adams, our facilitator, and wish you all the best,” Mrs. Esther Armah shared.

On his part, the President of the Ghana Insurers Association (GIA), Mr. Seth Aklasi commended IBAG for organising what he described as a wonderful programme.

He said with Ghana recording $45 billion worth of imports and exports per year, the importance of Marine Insurance cannot be understated.

In this regard, he stressed that putting together a workshop to train insurance professionals, especially brokers about the benefits of insuring imported or exported goods locally is the right way to go.

“The fact is that if we do know a product we will not be able to sell it.

“I believe that after these two days we will go back to our offices well-equipped to engage clients to get the best deal for them,” Mr. Seth Aklasi intimated.

In all, the two-day workshop is training over 150 insurance professionals from the insurance sector.

The training workshop is being facilitated by Mr. Hilton Derek Adams, Head of Marine & Aviation, Munich Reinsurance Company of Africa (Pty) Limited, South Africa.

Hilton D. Adams joined Munich Re about 36 years ago. He worked within the Marine/Aviation Department from day one. Over the years, he also did all Classes of Business in addition to his Marine / Aviation Responsibilities as a Client Manager. Hilton is currently Head of Marine & Aviation – plus Client Management duties and responsible for all Technical matters for the entire African Business handled by Munich Re – Africa.