By Rosemary ONUOHA

Inadequate human capacity has been identified as a reoccurring phenomenon in the insurance industry and is prone in the underwriting arm of the sector.

Immediate past President of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, CIIN, Mr. Wole Adetimehin, who made the assertion, said that the development has made the sector unable to play big in the underwriting of oil and gas risks.

Adetimehin said, “I would say inadequate human capacity has remained a reoccurring challenge facing our industry. It is more prominent with the underwriters. Nobody can fault the underlining reason of the local content policy initiative and it is meant to cut across all the sectors of the Nigerian economy. But in appraising the benefits so derived from the insurance sector, we are all having the fears as to what conclusion or report card we would give at this time.

“This is because from all facts available, we are yet to begin. Yes, there has been some participation here and there, but it is still far from the real intention and I think the industry should be addressing these challenge in a more pragmatic manner and one of such strategies, would be to really come together, sit down and evolve practical solutions.”

He therefore advised insurance practitioners to shun independent approach to doing things, and align more effectively to the fundamentals of insurance practice globally which is pooling and sharing of risks.

According to him, the move is necessary for insurers to tackle the challenge of human capacity and maximise opportunities provided by the local content policy.

He further said that the concept of pool formation and working together are the only way operators can grow their capacity, adding that available facts show that operators have not begun to scratch the surface of opportunities provided by the local content policy.

“The whole idea or approach of everybody going about it alone can hardly resolve this challenge. At our level as an institute, the challenge to us is to promote training modules and curriculums that would open or widen the mind-set of practitioners as to what to do. Capital base of companies have grown considerably, in fact, beyond imaginable scope.”

Adetimehin noted that beyond capital, there is a lot more that is expected from operators, stressing that operators ought not to underwrite or shoulder risks with their capital. He said capital is meant to provide infrastructures that would propel them to underwrite risks effectively.

He said operators need to develop the capacity to absolve risks, adding that the experience has been fairly good in the oil and gas business. He noted that if stakeholders can come together under pool formations, as being canvassed at many levels, capacity would grow.