The West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA) has advocated the need to harmonise insurance regulation and education to strengthen regional cooperation, build a vibrant, progressive and virile insurance market in the subregion.
Insurance expert and lead paper presenter at the WAICA Annual General Meeting and Education Conference held in Banjul Gambia, Dr Samson Omale stated this while speaking on the theme ‘Building a Common Insurance Market in West Africa: Challenges and Prospects’.
He said as important as the place of insurance is in the economic development of any nation, its full potential could not be exploited without markets coming together to gain from the exponential synergistic effect of such association.
Omale added that it was for this reason that countries all over the world were forming common markets.
Citing examples from countries in the EU, and CIMA zone that have realised this necessity and formed common regulations and directives that bound the operations of insurance activities in their various zones,Omale noted that as the economies of the world’s many nations become increasingly linked, a coordinated approach to legal problems like harmonisation had a strong appeal.
He added that increasing harmonisation of cross-border finance and trade regulations in Africa’s sub-regions was likely to further raise revenue potential of insurance in the coming years.
