GN Reinsurance Company Limited (GN RE), the third indigenous reinsurance concern in Ghana has been launched, with the aim to bolster and invigorate the insurance industry.
The company which is leveraging on its financial strength and the expertise of its managers to strategically impact the limited local reinsurance capacity and the entire Africa region, enters the market with an initial capital of GH? 80 million, which would be available to the local insurance sector.
GN RE is the latest addition to the Groupe Nduom conglomerate, a privately held business group with member companies in financial services, hospitality, real estate, Information technology, media and entertainment.
The two other local reinsurance companies are the Ghana Reinsurance Company Limited and the Mainstream Reinsurance Company Limited
Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, President and Chairman of Groupe Nduom and the Board Chairman of GN RE said at the launch in Accra on Monday that the company is adequately capitalised to enhance Ghana’s local reinsurance capacity that has been created by inadequate technical and financial capacity.
He said the GN RE, which could write up to GHc25 million of any one risk, would support clients with products, technical services and the financial backbone to engage the challenges of the sector in Ghana.
Dr Nduom said the company’s asset base and significant funds under management makes GN RE a bastion that the insurance industry in Ghana needs and the company is determined to ensure prudent management of investible funds and top direct its use as an important source of capital to fuel the country’s enterprise.
This would ensure a vibrant insurance industry that could provide long-term capital to support local industry to develop and grow.
Miss Lydia Bawa, Commissioner of Insurance lauded the launch of GN RE as a bold step at an opportune time that would to improve local reinsurance capacity.
She noted that though the Insurance Act, 2006 (ACT 724) requires all insurance companies to exhaust available local capacity before recourse to overseas reinsurance, insurance businesses over and above the capacities of the two existing reinsurance companies end up overseas resulting in huge premium flights yearly.
The Insurance Commissioner said the emergence of GN RE would help improve the retention capacity of the market and thus stem the high premium flight and stabilise the Cedi in the long run.
“I am confident that with the level of capitalisation with which the GN RE is entering the market, this is very possible”, she said.
