WAICA Reinsurance Corporation Plc. has recorded a gross premium of $62.5milion in its 2017 financial year, from the $49.2 million in 2016, Chairman of the corporation, Kofi Duffuor has said.
The Chairman said the corporation also grew its profit from six point two million dollars to seven million dollars. Also, he said the corporation paid dividends of over $25 million.
The firm’s Managing Director, Abiola Ekundayo said the corporation has an authorised share capital of $100 million with $25 million expected to be paid at the end of the on-going equity capital subscription.
He noted that 2017 was a good year compared to 2015 and 2016. “I can say that 2017 was as good as any other year as from the time we started. We have been consistently paying dividend to our shareholders.
‘‘Although we posted good results in 2017, there were issues in 2016. WAICA Re would have been able to do better in terms of the nets due to our people. But the currency devaluation in all the countries affected our business. Currencies were not stable. In Nigeria alone for example, in 2015 and 2016, we lost about $4 million and another $2 million to exchange loss. At present, we are looking at the year for things to get better.
“WAICA Reinsurance Corporation Plc. is a public limited liability company incorporated under the laws of Sierra Leone (Companies Act 2009) on March 7, 2011. In the years following the creation of West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA) in 1973, the founding fathers desired to establish a reinsurance organization to help mitigate the effects of the lack of reinsurance capacity in West Africa.
‘’To fulfill this ambition, the founding fathers considered it prudent to start off by creating a reinsurance pool, which hopefully, will someday metamorphose into a fully-fledged reinsurance corporation. Today, the WAICA Reinsurance Pool has turned into WAICA Reinsurance Corporation Plc. a dream come true.
“There is no gainsaying that there is lack of reinsurance capacity in the West African sub-region, which situation is compelling insurance companies to seek reinsurance protection in other parts of the world where the treaties offered are not competitive and/or affordable and the service sometimes almost non-existent.’’
‘’The WAICA Executive Council gives impetus to the development and realization of the idea of establishing a fully-fledged reinsurance institution, then embarked on revitalizing and implementing the WAICA Reinsurance Corporation (WAICA Re).
‘’To this end, the Executive Committee endorsed the age-old decision to locate the headquarters of WAICA Reinsurance Corporation (WAICA Re) in Freetown, Sierra Leone and to have major centres in Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria. Apart from providing reinsurance capacity, the establishment of WAICA Re is a good example of regional socio-economic integration,’’ Ekundayo said.