Following government' efforts at ensuring that life business in this country is considerably enhanced coupled with the enactment of Pension Reform Act 2004, Managing Director of Continental Reinsurance Plc, Mr Adeyemo Adejumo, counseled insurance companies to adopt strategic marketing to turn life business around.

Adejumo spoke at the ongoing 5-day seminar on Life and Pension organised by Continental Re at Gateway Hotel, Abeokuta, Ogun State.

According to him, "marketing life insurance requires radical steps and strategic marketing in order to enhance life business in the country. And, if we do not grasp the nettle now, we will be storing up, for ourselves, personal financial hardship and, for the country, a social and economic catastrophe."

At the first day of the seminar, CRe boss stated: "although government must take the lead, the solution is exclusively in the hands of the industry and the responsibility cannot be abdicated to the government alone".

Adejumo recalled that group life business, unlike what obtains in the past, has become compulsory for every enterprise that has five or more employees as provided in the Nigerian Pension Reform Act 2004. The group life assurance is to provide death benefit on minimum of three times the annual total emoluments.

"Underwriters should endeavour to charge adequate premium that is commensurate with the mag-nitude and type of risks being underwritten so as to break even. There is also a growing demand for health insurance and permanent disability either as a rider to group life, we should charge for these extra benefits instead of leaving it free for members of the scheme".

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) is not finding it too easy to get organised private sector, including banks, insurance firms, broking firms, manufacturing firms, media organizations and construction firms, among others, to comply with prompt remittance of pension contributions as required by the Pension Reform Act 2004.

It would be recalled that the pension reform swung into full action after the Act was signed into law on June 25, 2004, with a firm mandate to ensure that every person who worked in either the public service of the federation, Federal Capital Territory or private sector receives his retirement benefits as and when due. Other objectives include to: assist improvident individuals by ensuring that they save in order to cater for their livelihood during old age: and establish a uniformed set of rules, regulations and standards for the administration and payments of retirement benefits for the Public Service of the Federation, Federal Capital Territory and the Private Sector.

Section 11 (5) of the Act states that: "The employer shall deduct at source the monthly contribution of the employee in his employ-ment: and not later than seven working days from the day the employee is paid his salary, remit an amount comprising the employee's contribution and the employer's contribution to the custodian specified by the pension fund administrator of the employee to the exclusive order of such pension fund administrator."

Based on that, CRe boss reiterated that insurance industry and, indeed, underwriters, he noted, must play their part, adding that the hope of many years back that the standard of life and living would go up is still alive and achievable"

He said that Continental Re organised four training programmes in a year to sensitise insurance companies within and outside the African continent on the need for human capital development.

"All our training programmes are organized to foster cross-fertilization of ideas and practice in Africa. It is our resolve at Continental Re to invite seasoned and well-exposed practitioners from all over Africa to come and share their wealth of experience with us". The reinsurer's authorized share capital stands at N7.5 billion with N5.18 billion fully paid up as at 30th September 2007. The shareholders' fund is in excess of N11.2 billion with insurance fund of N1.27bbillion, while investments is N2.50 billion. The total assets, as at 30th September 2007, stood at N13.23 billion. We transact reinsurance business in over 40 countries with regional offices in Douala, Cameroun and Nairobi, Kenya.

Meanwhile, Continental Re has just been rated BB+ by AM Best Rating Agency, an international rating agency thus making the reinsurer the first private reinsurance company to be rated by the agency.