Operators
link survival of sector to govt’s policy
The nation’s
insurance sector may be far from meeting the local content objectives of
the
Federal Government as it is currently losing about 90 per cent of the big risks
in the economy to foreign underwriters.
Consequently,
there is not only a huge capital flight from the economy but lower risk
retention capacity and inability to insure the big risks.The situation has made
the nation’s insurance industry the weakest link in the financial services
sector, contrary to what happens in other climes where the insurance sector constitutes
the strong asset base for major projects, especially infrastructure.
The Guardian
learnt that the lack of the full implementation of the Local Content Act in
insuring oil and gas risks has made the sector to lag behind compared to its
peers globally.
If the Local
Content Act is fully implemented in the country, it will boost the insurance
sector’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from less than one
per cent as it is currently.
Even at
that, the bigger issue is low level capitalisation which limits the capacity of
local operators to play in the big underwriting league of the oil and gas,
aviation and maritime sectors.
The sector
contributes 15 per cent to GDP in South Africa, just as the Ghana’s insurance
market is projected to hit $600 million next year from $400million in 2014
based on Oxford Business Group’s (OBG’s) projected annual growth rate of 8.5
per cent.
The OBG’s
2017 report cites a January 2016 survey as saying that Ghana has the highest
potential for growth in insurance premiums, and the least in terms of risk in
sub-Sahara Africa. Insurance penetration, which is below two per cent of the
population, measured as a percentage of GDP, underpins the vast but yet to be
exploited potential.
Industry
stakeholders who spoke with The Guardian said despite the local content policy
that has been in place, insurance firms are yet to fully take advantage of it
in order to wrestle away a major chunk of the underwriting business from
foreign firms.
If the
sector is able to underwrite the big risks, it would not only add value to the
economy but increase its contribution to the GDP.As an oil and gas producing
and exporting country, insurance experts argued that the economic development
of Nigeria, coupled with the demand for energy infrastructure projects in the
oil and gas industry should be enough to sustain the insurance sector.
The Local
Content Act 2010 effectively states that 70 per cent of all businesses coming
out of the oil and gas sector be insured in Nigeria. These include engineering,
building of infrastructure, and other insurance needs.
However, an
analyst who preferred anonymity affirmed to The Guardian that expectations that
stakeholders would utilise the Local Content Act to boost insurance business in
Nigeria have not been met, as insurance operators, using different excuses,
have been unable to deepen insurance penetration, with many others remaining
incapable of getting a share of the businesses from foreign-controlled
companies.
Nigeria
which has the biggest insurance market in West Africa with total premium of
over N300 billion is grappling with insurance penetration of a modest 0.6 per
cent, and the Local Content Act has not been able to drive the sector into high
performance.
Explaining
the situation, the Managing Director of Continental Reinsurance Plc, Dr. Femi
Oyetunji, said Nigerian insurers currently insured only about 10 per cent of
such risks while the rest are insured abroad. He blamed underwriters’ tendency
for relatively low retention levels in respect of energy risks.
According to
him, owing to their relatively modest size and capitalisation, compared with
acceptable international standards for insurance companies, the Local Content
Act will have little or no effect, since bearing and underwriting risk in the
oil and gas sector requires huge capital investments outlay.
Oyetunji
said: “The big risks in the sector are all owned by multinationals with head
offices in U.S., China, and Europe. So they will be more comfortable dealing
with companies from their own base.
“If the
local content policy were not in place, I can assure you that most of us would
not be in business now because the size of the balance sheet of some of the big
global insurers would have placed them in vantage position to write everything
that is there.
“Insurance
business is a global thing. These overseas companies are internationally ‘A’
rated players so everything seems to work against African companies. Nigeria is
doing well in terms of making sure that local capacities are exhausted before
any risk is externalised.
“Africa is
going through tough times and most African economies depend on commodities.
Commodities prices, be it copper, gold, or crude oil have gone down, so the
economies have been affected and when economies are affected you have a
downturn and the first causality has always been insurance. We have seen a lot
of reduction in interest in insurance.
“We have
seen asset values going down; we have also seen a new risk coming to the fore
front which is risk of currency fluctuation. Nigeria has been negatively
impacted. In fact what we see is that some of these risks are now being offered
to us from outside Africa.”
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