The West African Insurance Companies Association Education Conference is set to open in Lagos this October with a focus on the rising climate change risks in the region.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of the conference on Tuesday, the Chairman of the Local Organising Committee, Mrs Ebelechukwu Nwachukwu, underscored the urgency of the discussions.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, West Africa is experiencing climate change at rates faster than the global average. It is impacting regional political dynamics, violent conflicts and complex humanitarian emergencies. In the next 10-20 years, unprecedented changes in temperatures and precipitation are projected in the region.
The 2025 Education Conference is organised by the Nigerian Insurers Association under the theme ‘The West African Insurer in the Face of Climate Change’. It will bring together insurance practitioners, regulators, policymakers, and thought leaders representing countries across the West African sub-region. Member countries of WAICA, namely Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and The Gambia, will be represented.
Nwachukwu said, “This conference will create a strategic platform for deliberation on the impact of climate change and help us as underwriters begin to think about how to underwrite the risks that are emerging from the impact of this. So, it’s going to be very educational and going to be an eye-opener for all of us on some emerging risks that are associated with climate.”
Highlighting the region’s vulnerabilities, she stressed the importance of African voices in the climate dialogue: “Importantly for us in Africa, we must begin to engage more and more on climate change as the continent faces unique vulnerabilities such as extreme weather and flooding, as we see even around us here in Lagos; in areas like Delta State where I come from, drought and agricultural disruptions that directly impact businesses, communities and livelihoods.”
She added that these climate-driven pressures are already showing up in insurance data, saying, “For insurers, these challenges translate, or are beginning to translate, more and more into rising claims, increased risk exposures and the urgent need for innovative product and risk management solutions to guard against the impact of this.”
The event will feature keynote addresses, paper presentations and panel sessions. Nwachukwu revealed that the conference paper would be delivered by the Group Managing Director of Custodian Investment Plc, Wole Oshin, while the Minister of State for Finance, Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite, will deliver the keynote address at the opening ceremony of the conference. The Commissioner for Insurance, National Insurance Commission, Olusegun Omosehin, is the Chief Host of the conference.
Other confirmed speakers include the Ag. Commissioner of Insurance, Ghana, Dr Abiba Zakaria; the Deputy Minister of Finance, Republic of Sierra Leone, Mr Bockarie Kaloko; and the MD/CEO of Mutual Specialist, Ms Tola Adegbayi.
Nwachukwu stressed that the dialogue is about shaping solutions that directly touch the lives of millions. “We have seen across Nigeria how much climate is impacting agriculture, impacting construction, impacting our roads and infrastructure, and even impacting the ability of some of our children to go to schools,” she said. “There is no conference that has been held to actually dissect this emerging risk or the impact of what we are seeing across West Africa. This conference seeks to bring all of the challenges to the fore.”
Drawing from her personal ties to Delta State, she illustrated the daily impact of climate change: “From the part of the state I come from, by marriage, we’re just beside the water. And almost every time that it rains, we have water going in and destroying agriculture, destroying buildings, destroying livelihoods, and destroying livestock from agriculture. Sometimes it’s all washed away by water and flood. Nobody is talking about how to develop products and develop solutions to address this,” she said.
She emphasised that the conference will not only diagnose the problem but also push the industry toward innovation. “What we’re doing with this conference is to bring out all aspects where climate is affecting the economies and find ways to dissect it and say, ‘These are the risk exposures.’ Now go create products and create solutions around it,” Nwachukwu said.
While acknowledging the vast market size of climate-related insurance, she cautioned that the focus is not profit but preparedness. “In terms of market size, I would say it’s a huge market. But I don’t know if this conference is thinking about the premiums we generate as much as the focus of this conference on deciding the risk that we are exposed to and making people aware that insurance is thinking about how to protect them if such risk crystallises.”
She concluded with a call to action for regional collaboration: “This conference will address this, and by the end of the conference, we will probably be able to scope the impact of weather and climate on our environment. Our objective is to leave that conference fully aware of the exposures across West Africa.”
