Accra, May 18, GNA - Mr C. C. Bruce Jnr, Chairman of the Life Council of the Ghana Insurers Association (GIA), on Wednesday said the Life Insurance market was fast growing and was likely to overtake Motor Insurance in the next few years. He said with 35 per cent of the market share there was no doubt that it would happen very soon.

Mr Bruce Jnr said this at a day's seminar on Life Insurance claims management on the theme: 93The Prompt and Efficient Management of Life Insurance Claims" in Accra. Participants were taken through topics such as the claims process, medical issues involved in processing, identification of a genuine death certificate as a requirement for proof of death and change of beneficiaries in life insurance.

Mr Bruce Jnr, however, noted that 93growth comes with complexities and that a study of the 2009 report of the National Insurance Commission (NIC) revealed that life insurance was experiencing a worse claim ratio". Speaking to Ghana News Agency in Accra after the seminar, Mr Bruce attributed the worse claim ratio to the worsening life expectancy, which increased from 31 per cent in 2008 to 36 per cent in 2009 and explained that this was a strain on the fortunes of the company. "Fortunately the life expectancy was picking up" he said.

According to him, other challenges facing the industry was the capacity to pay claims promptly, hence the relevance of the workshop to build technical capacity of personnel to be able to deal with fraudulent claims. The Claims Manager of Metropolitan Life, George Moses, also noted that one important service an insurance company could give its customers was Life Insurance and equally made it an obligation to settle claims promptly. He mentioned some of the claims as death, maturity, surrender, partial withdrawal and critical illness claims. According to him, the claim process required notification, presentation of documents and finally settlement and further explained that to initiate a claim, documents should include a policy document, proof of death and identity of deceased (burial certificate, certificate of treatment etc) and the last receipt of payment and a completed claim form. Forms of payment could be cash, cheque or electronic transfer; he said and added that only the nominee, the assignee or the legal representative or successor could receive it. Ms Gladys Gyasi, Chairperson of the Underwriting and Claims Subcommittee of the Life Council of the GIA, said the expectation of the Committee was to see to the improvement in payment of claims and for personnel to be able to quickly identify genuine claims and serve clients better.