Rev. Dr. Joyce Rosalind Aryee, the Executive Director of the Salt and Light Ministries, has advised insurance practitioners to firmly uphold integrity, apply honesty, be trustworthy, and give reverence to stakeholder and customer rights, as they professionally provide insurance services.

Rev. Aryee, while delivering a keynote address, at the induction ceremony of new insurance professionals, at the Chartered Insurance Institute of Ghana (CIIG), revealed that, by adhering to the aforementioned professional virtues, insurance practitioners can re-write their marred professional insurance service delivery history.

“Professional ethics stipulates that as individuals, you need to ensure your actions will be viewed as proper by a disinterested panel of other professionals.
“Your actions as insurance professionals must result in the greater good for the greatest number of your clients and society. The public’s negative perception on insurance can be changed with this principle and lead to an increase in the insurance penetration rate on the country.”
Dr. Joyce Rosalind Aryee

Mr. Tawiah Ben-Ahmed, the President of the CIIG, during the induction ceremony, also admonished the new insurance professionals to in principle, commit to the objectives and strictly adhere to the ethical standards of the insurance profession.

“As you are aware, the insuring public expects a lot more from us, especially in the area of reliable customer experience, of which effective claims handling is pivotal.”
Mr. Tawiah Ben-Ahmed

It all ‘boils down’ to insurance practitioners to improve, or better still, reinstate insurance trust, public confidence, and general awareness to “earn the reputation that insurance in Ghana deserves”, Mr. Ben-Ahmed revealed.

“Contribute your part to change the rather unfortunate perception of insurers being too quick to collect premiums and on the other side, delaying in claims payments or not paying claims.”
Mr. Tawiah Ben-Ahmed

The induction ceremony

The induction event which was purposed to fully initiate new insurance professionals into the practice, was graced with 97 newly admitted members into the association, out of which 75 new members were admitted as Advanced Diploma Holders, while the remaining 22 were admitted as insurance fellows.

The designatory professional insurance title ‘Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Ghana (ACIIG), was conferred on the new Advanced Diploma Holders.

Whereas the 22 newly admitted fellows, were given the right to use the title ‘Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Ghana (FCIIG)’.

The CIIG, after the august induction ceremony, now stands strong with 1,136 members, 66 being fellows of the association, 464 as Associates, 71 Diploma members, 74 affiliate members, and 461 being student members.

Insurance best practices

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), insurance companies, by adopting practices such as effective claim filing methods, operational fraud detections and prevention measures, fair and transparent claim assessment and processing, can help address the issues faced by the insurance industry.

These policies, however, OECD stated, are “neither binding nor exhaustive, but meant as a checklist to assist insurance companies in handling claims”.

“Other appropriate ways to manage claims may exist and may already be reflected in a country’s national laws and regulation and/or in company or industry codes of conduct.”
OECD