Mainstream Re, KEK Re Brokers hold seminar on Reinsurance Accounting

By Elliot WIILIAMS

Mainstream Reinsurance Company and KEK Reinsurance Brokers have partnered to organize a capacity building seminar on reinsurance accounting for general (non-life) insurance underwriters and reinsurance brokers.

The seminar took place from Wednesday, September 10^th to Friday, September 13 at the Coconut Groove Beach Resort, Elmina, under the theme: “Reinsurance Accounting – Bridging Theory with Real Case Application.”

Over 40 participants attended from both Ghana’s insurance industry as well as three other countries in Anglophone West Africa – Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Ghana’s insurance industry was represented by Ghana Reinsurance Company PLC, Aces Reinsurance Brokers, Visal Reinsurance Brokers and I – Risk Reinsurance Brokers, in the reinsurance sub-sector as well as Activa Insurance Company, SIC Insurance Company, Star Assurance, Enterprise Insurance, Vanguard Assurance among other insurance underwriting firms.

The capacity building seminar was necessary because there is an identified gap between theory and practice in reinsurance accounting which arises because reinsurance contracts are highly customized and complex legal agreements, not simple commodity products.

A theoretical “transfer of risk” from insurance underwriter to reinsurer is therefore not always clear-cut in practice. Real world complexities that create the gap include the variety of contracts, the existence of non-standard terms, timing mismatches between premium payments and claims settlements, credit risk and the financial engineering structures which address more than pure risk transfer.

Welcoming participants to the seminar, both the acting Managing Director of KEK Reinsurance Brokers, William Ampofo, and Mrs Anokye-Mensah, Senior Manager Underwriting & Business Development at Mainstream Re – who was representing Mainstream’s CEO, Professor Adom Frimpong – emphasized the importance of reinsurance, asserting that it is far more than theory since it is a very practical issue.

Mrs Adwoa Anokye-Mensah went on to deliver the keynote address at the opening session, drawing on her more than 20 years of experience in the reinsurance industry.

The resource person for the seminar was the vastly skilled and experienced Nuerkie Odzeyem , the CEO of the Dubai, United Arab Emirates headquartered Aurelion Reinsurance, who is a former Managing Director of KEK Reinsurance Brokers.

During the main sessions, one and a half days of teaching on practical reinsurance accounting was followed by a half day of hands-on reinsurance accounting exercises.

Last week’s seminar came a year after the two partnering companies – Mainstream Reinsurance Company Limited and KEK Reinsurance Brokers – held a collaborative 3-day non-life capacity-building programme on the theme: “Treaty Negotiation and Renewal Significance of Data and Statistics.”

The event was attended by over 45 reinsurance practitioners from the non- life underwriting companies in Ghana and a few from the sub region.

Mainstream Re is the oldest private reinsurance company in Ghana, having been established in 1994 by entrepreneurial Ghanaians committed to developing the insurance industry.

While initially focused on the Ghanaian market it has since expanded to receive business internationally while maintaining its strong local foundation.

KEK Reinsurance Brokers (Africa) Limited is an international reinsurance broking which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of KEK Insurance Brokers, Ghana’s leading insurance brokerage since 1992. The reinsurance brokerage was established in 2006.

It started with the Ghanaian market and spread out to the West African sub-region. Fourteen years on, the company has footprints all over Africa.

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