Miss Insurance promotes insurance at Covenant University

By Yemi Olakitan
Published in the Guardian Newspapers
Friday, December 18th 2009

LAST year, Miss Brenda Nwakama became a beauty queen from the insurance sector, when she was crowned Miss Insurance 2009. This shows that beauty queens are not the exclusive preserve of the entertainment companies or campuses alone, but various sectors and industries in our national life can showcase their beauty queens as well. These beauty queens are also not mere figureheads; they pursue meaningful objectives that add value to the economic and national development of the country as a whole.

This was the case when, as part of her pet project for the remaining part of her tenure, the reigning beauty queen of the insurance sector gave an insurance awareness lecture, titled "Insurance: Mechanism of risk control," at the Covenant University Otta, Ogun State, recently.

Miss Brenda was crowned as the Miss Insurance 2009 during the 50th anniversary celebration of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, last year.

In a statement released by Scib Nigeria Limited, her employers, the company said the lecture was aimed at creating awareness among the students on insurance and encouraging them to take up careers in the industry after their degree programme. Brenda said that as future managers and leaders of tomorrow, it was critical to educate them early enough to the importance of insurance at micro and macro levels and also through this deepen market penetration for future potential buyers.

Activities of the day also included a talk by Asthma Relief Campaign Project, an NGO collaborating with Miss Insurance on educating the populace concerning asthma, a silent killer that is not yet considered a serious public health issue. Mr. Ugochukwu Nwangoro who led the NGO team to Covenant University presented the talk on asthma.

Present at the event were the CIIN team led by the Director of Corporate Services, Mr. Joseph Obah, Scib Nigeria & Co. Limited led by Mr. Gboyega Olanbiwoninu, head, Business Development and others.

The programme also featured young insurance professionals with various academic backgrounds testifying to the fact of the changing face of the industry from what it used to be.

At the awareness lecture Brenda explained that insurance is a strong tool for the assessment and evaluation of risks and the exposures and formulation of a cost effective cost mechanism to control the risk. She also went on to explain the process of Insurance-Risk Transfer Mechanism whereby insurance institutions accept risk in consideration for receipt of premiums. She explained that the broker on behalf of the insured advises and decides on how best to handle the risk exposures. He is thus an authority on risk exposure and an expert in the insurance market.

The seminar explained the role of insurance in strategic business continuity and economic development, locally and globally.

Brenda said that insurance empowers individuals and institutions to handle risk contingency exposures, which are beyond budget provision due to the unpredictability. This is because risk can be complex and sometimes of catastrophic nature. She gave the 9/11 World Trade Centre bombing, Ikeja Cantonment bombing and Hurricane Katrina as part of her illustrations.