With disasters, crises and shocks on the rise, actuaries have an increasingly critical role to play in the daily operations and sustainability of the insurance industry.

The ‘non-life actuarial practice’, which deals with policies such as property damage and liability, is especially important. Risks covered by non-life insurers tend to be short-term in nature and require non-ilfe actuarial expertise for well-developed products with appropriate pricing, close monitoring of risk, experience studies and accurate reserve projections.

In Ghana, in-house non-life actuarial expertise is limited with almost all non-life actuarial work done through outsourced consultants. This deficit and its possible rippling effect on the insurance industry was identified by Ghana’s National Insurance Commission (NIC). In 2021, the NIC addressed the issue by making it a regulatory requirement for all insurance companies to establish a fully operational in-house actuarial function. The law further states the in-house actuarial function may not be outsourced.

The Non-Life Actuarial Capacity Development Programme (NACDev Programme) was formally launched on January 29th 2024 to support insurer’s compliance with this regulation. As a collaboration between the NIC and Actuarial Society of Ghana (ASG), with support from the UNDP Milliman Global Actuarial Initiative (GAIN), the Programme will help develop actuarial capacity and resources for non-life insurance companies operating within Ghana’s insurance market over the next 3 years.

The scope of the Programme includes expanding the number and technical capacity of staff managing actuarial functions. It also encompasses the development of frameworks, guidelines and operational manuals on specific actuarial assignments and functions as well as specialized trainings that drive effective technical development towards a thriving non-life actuary industry in Ghana.

A team of nine actuaries from Milliman worked closely with UNDP, the ASG and the NIC over many months leading up to the launch. The UNDP Milliman GAIN program has also undertaken several additional initiatives in partnership with the NIC, ASG, Ghana Insurance Association (GIA), the University of Ghana, and local actuaries, which include building on ASG’s Graduate Actuarial Training (GAT) programme, development of assured life mortality tables for industry use, matching practicing actuarial professionals with global mentors, and providing actuarial exam tutoring support.

The expected outcome of the NACDev Programme by the end of 2024 is that all general insurance companies are working towards compliance with the Insurance Act by having the right skilled junior and senior actuarial staff onboard.

In his speech, the Acting Commissioner of Insurance, Mr. Kofi Andoh reiterated the importance of the support Ghana is receiving from Milliman in partnership with UNDP’s Insurance and Risk Finance Facility (IRFF), to build the capacity of actuarial professionals in Ghana. He stressed the importance of industryplayers taking advantage of this unique and highly accessible opportunity being offered to support the insurance industry.

Like Ghana, limited actuarial capability is a concern shared by most developing countries, alongside the lack of data - particularly data on populations most at risk and on emerging climate risk. This combination of limited actuarial expertise and unavailability of quality data inadvertently leads to mispricing, resulting ininsurance products or limited product offerings that are unaffordable for the majority and that provide little value for most of the population. The UNDP Milliman Global Actuarial Initiative is focused on addressing these deficiencies.

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