By Favour Nnabugwu

African Insurance Organisation (AIO) image maker, Mr. Moki Chrles Linonge said that Zimbabwe and the AIO organizing committee are prepared for participants that will attend this year’s AIO.

Linonge who confirmed this to Financial Vanguard in a mail noted that over 600 insurance practitioners and observers across 54 countries around the world are set to storm Zimbabwe for the 38th Conference and Annual General Assembly of the AIO from the 21st to 26th May, 2011.

Besides, the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) headed by Mr. Sunday Thomas is also gathering and ensuring that Nigerian takes the center stage in this year AIO like never before.

The event bid to take place at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe this month has put the Zimbabwe government on its toes to make its visitors to the country comfortable.

According to him, “I can confirm that the Local Organising Committee and the AIO Secretariat are making giant strides aimed at making the conference a veritable success. Going by the reports we have from the LOC in Zimbabwe, headed by the Vice President of the AIO, Mr. Solomon Tembo, preparations are going on smoothly with no major hitches this far”.

Linonge said, “The affluence is quite high and this is already exerting pressure on existing accommodation facilities. Last year in The Gambia, we had 500 delegates. So far, we have close to 600 delegates registered already and from the look of things, this figure may increase because the last_minute_rush is almost becoming traditional”.

It would be recalled that insurance operators reached a 17 paragraph resolution at the 37TH AIO conference held in Banjul, Gambia in 2010.

The resolutions were that the survival, growth and development of the insurance industry in Africa will be greatly enhanced if we effectively deal with unethical practices such as rate undercutting, premium purchase, undermining of each other etc that have plagued the industry over the years and have contributed to low capacity, low profitability, poor claims settlement and generally low image for the industry in Africa.

They agreed that practitioners must recognize the role of other stakeholders such as the judiciary, governments, customers and the general public in the enforcement of the code of ethics and work in concert with all to ensure adherence to ethical and highly professional behavior.