Guardian

We are conscious of the industry post consolidation challenges, which came with new and complex human capital needs. The challenges facing the industry today not only require a fresh impetus in human capital development, but also a renewed vigor and approach to skills recreation.

THE Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria has reiterated its resolve to intensify training and retraining of professional managers locally and abroad to meet the challenges for risk business management in Nigeria.

The President and Chairman of Council, Wole Adetimehin gave the assurance during the induction of 16 fellows and 134 associates at the 2012 graduation ceremony in Lagos, stated that the only way to guarantee effective professional risk management in the industry was to embrace human capital development as a priority in the corporate organisations of the industry.

“We are conscious of the industry post consolidation challenges, which came with new and complex human capital needs. The challenges facing the industry today not only require a fresh impetus in human capital development, but also renewed vigor and approach to skills recreation in order to equip practitioners for the huge tasks of managing the current realities in the business landscape.”

He said, “let me assure that the responsibilities conferred on the Institute by statute have continued to engender a robust platform for the propagation of insurance education in Nigeria. In particular, the Institute’s professional examinations have become deep-rooted and have, since 1992, produced home-bred professionals who have continued to perform creditably in their various endeavours, creating value by deploying their expertise in risk management, efficient underwriting and the promotion of enterprise by indemnifying businesses against losses when they occur.”

“Permit me,” he said, to reiterate the fact that the men and women, who today find fulfillment in the attainment of our invaluable professional qualification, are also accepting greater burden of responsibility as custodians of the ethics and codes of practice of our noble profession. They will be constantly reminded of the oath of allegiance to their professional calling, as well as, their vows to be of good conduct at all times.

“Today’s graduation and awards ceremony follows the Governing Council’s ratification of the award of the Institute Fellowship to 16 deserving members and the election of 134 members as Associates of our great Institute after satisfying the stipulated requirements. Let me state that the Institute has successfully demonstrated its commitment structure, which allows qualifiers at each level of the examination to obtain a certificate of completion. Ours, no doubt, is a flexible and learner-friendly examination structure geared at motivating greater interest in the attainment of professional qualification in order to address the industry human capital needs,” he said.

“I wish to emphasise the determination of the Institute to continually strengthen the examination system through regular review of the syllabus and examination structure. We are conscious of the industry post consolidation challenges, which came with new and complex human capital needs. The challenges facing the industry today not only require a fresh impetus in human capital development but also a renewed vigor and approach to skills recreation in order to equip practitioners for the huge tasks of managing the current realities in the business landscape.”

The Director General of the Institute, Adegboyega Adepegba told The Guardian that the institute was poised to offer the industry all it ever desires in terms of training and retraining to meet challenges in the industry.

Apart from the number of associates that we have inducted this year, we have also organised conferences and exposed our members to corporate governance strategy in the management of risks.

He said, “the need for these conferences is burn out of the realisation that we must continue to expose our members to new ideas, and we have chosen and collaborated with the Lagos Business School in leadership training, organisational management, re-branding, repositioning, training and re-organisation, we believe there is a lot of new things that our members have learnt to be able to manage change in the hostile business environment in this country.”

The Chairman of the Membership and Professional Standard Committee of the Institute, Adeyemo Adejumo congratulated the institute for the bold efforts it is taking to train professional managers for the industry.

According to him, in the post consolidation insurance environment, there was need more than ever before for insurance companies to adopt a policy of continuous development of human capital to produce competent and reliable insurance underwriters for the industry.

He said, “in the post consolidation business environment, competent underwriting should be the hallmark of insurance business if the industry must drive maximum benefits from the reform policy, especially in the specialise underwriting business. Underwriters are decreasing in the industry as a result of retirement, there must be planned strategy for replacement and succession.”

According to him, underwriting firms should increase their budget for development of human capital, as well as, support the institute in its training programmes, so that we can compete effectively in the international arena.