Patience Saghana
19 November 2008
IN spite of all the storms that rocked Nigerian Reinsurance Corporation especially in the last two years, the management of the reinsurance company has said the reinsurer would bounce back to regain its leadership position in the country.
Mr. Joe Ameh, Managing Director of the company in an interview with Vanguard in Tunisia recently admitted that the corporation had indeed gone through trying period, adding that Nigeria Re has survived it all.
According to him, "Over time, a lot of challenges have come our way and we have overcome of all them. And the immediate challenge for us now at Nigeria Re is to reposition the company to take its rightful position both within Nigerian and in the international market."
He said, "We will leverage on the brand of Nigeria Re and for the good of the entire insurance industry to play its role as the flag-bearer providing training at the local level and strengthening its resource base within the company and reposition the company in the international market."
Nigerian Re boss said with the injection of capital in the company, and shareholders fund of about N20billion, he says, "we are back as strong and reliable reinsurance company ready to play beyond Africa as a global player."
Ameh said, "Nigeria Re is now ready to compete in the global market. That is where we are going as our long-term target. Our immediate target is Africa, Middle East and Asia"
"We are now financially strong; we are about N20 billion shareholders' fund, well over N10 billion capital base, the huge concentration of human resource base, strong experience in reinsurance practice, an average of 20 to 25 years. This is the strength we have both human capital and finance strength, which we must leverage".
"Our expectation is to begin to provide leadership at the Nigerian market level and of course be also at the leading level in the continental market that is our immediate goal. In this regard, we are restructuring internally, we are reviewing our internal processes to ensure that we partner with our consumers to respond promptly to their demands on us."
He stated, "we want people to begin to see us now beyond the lens of seeing the company as a legal cession company, as a civil service government owned company. We are a commercial player, a privatised organisation, ready to do business in line with best practices that is where we are.
"Our immediate challenge is to restore confidence in the minds of our customers that Nigeria Re is back. The truth of the matter is that we are back. We have been going round explaining ourselves to them with the hope that they will open their offices to us by appreciating that Nigeria Re has what it takes to provide leadership of their programmes."
He reiterated,"we want the market to now know that the Nigeria Re that provided them training and service over the years, essentially about legal cession in the past is back to do business mainly on treaty and facultative basis. We have repositioned ourselves to pay all claims that would be made on us. We have looked at all the outstanding claims that are in our books which is under N300 million, the board has agreed and approved that we should pay all those claims".
"We are meeting with these companies to ascertain the position of those claims. We are putting aside the issue of legal cession, which will be managed differently. A new business relationship that they will have with us will be managed as a new business relationship to respond promptly as a reinsurer of choice, which they cannot find anywhere. Besides, we are all out now to provide quality service that we should be known for in the market."
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