Dakar, September 27 (APS) – The Wafa Assurance group wants to help make the African insurance market more mature and allow its players to “avoid making the same mistakes”, thanks to Wafa Connect, its event annual meeting bringing together industrialists, financiers and insurers, assured, Friday, in Dakar, its executive director in charge of international issues, Adil Bouifrouri.
”We need to make the market more mature. That’s the idea of Wafa Connect. It’s about creating spaces where we reach out to customers, regulators, the State, etc., to share with them our experience, which is not perfect. We made mistakes. It’s good to share mistakes to allow our Senegalese friends to avoid making the same ones,” said Mr. Bouifrouri.
Wafa Assurance, a Moroccan company created in 2014, held the third edition of Wafa Connect this Friday in the Senegalese capital, in the presence of several industrialists, financiers and insurers.
”Promote the penetration of insurance among the general public”
”It’s a friendly and disinterested platform, to the extent that we want to act as a citizen actor […] Beyond investing and earning money, which is good, we also need to change the mindset and ensure that insurance reaches people who do not have access to it and don’t know what it can bring them,” said Adil Bouifrouri to show the usefulness of this annual event of the group.
He believes that ”if we manage to modestly change things after a few Wafa Connect meetings, after a few years, that would be very good”.
”This initiative was born from an awareness: even if we make 1.3 billion US dollars […] in terms of turnover, we were a little known in certain African countries such as Senegal, where we are the third largest insurance company,” continued Mr. Bouifrouri.
Boubker Jaï, President and CEO of Wafe Assurance
With Wafa Connect, ”we have launched a number of initiatives to […] bring us closer to our customers, our partners and the market in general. Wafa Connect is a place where we bring together our employees, our partners and our customers every year to keep them informed of our trajectory, what we have achieved and what we intend to do in the future. […] next few years,” he said.
The insurance company seeks at the same time to “popularize insurance and [à] promote its penetration among the general public,” said its executive director in charge of international affairs.
Wafa Connect is an opportunity, according to him, to explain to customers and partners ”why, for example, it is extremely important to prepare for retirement, to promote savings and financing the economy with the instruments financial markets”.
Mr. Bouifrouri thinks that “there must be a virtuous circle in which insurance plays a driving role”.
The group’s annual event also gives it the opportunity to help ”grow the market, to mature it, to make people understand the role of each of the parties concerned, the consumer, the State, etc., to ensure that the market becomes more professional and mature.
”Enriching discussions, innovative ideas and new opportunities”
The Wafa Assurance company operates in seven African countries, including Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Tunisia, according to Adil Bouifrouri. In Senegal, its employees “are almost one hundred percent Senegalese,” he said.
The first two editions of Wafa Connect took place in Abidjan and Douala. For the third edition, ”the choice of Dakar […] demonstrates Wafa Assurance’s commitment to the Senegalese market, where we have been established since 2015 through our subsidiaries Wafa Assurance Vie Sénégal and Wafa Assurance Non-Vie Sénégal,” underlined Boubker Jaï, the president and CEO of the company. insurance.
”It was a successful edition, which brought together influential leaders from the business, finance and insurance sectors across Africa, around enriching discussions, innovative ideas and new opportunities.” , estimates Adil Bouifrouri.
ESF/MTN
