In a modern market economy, insurance performs a number of important functions, the first and most important of which is compensation for damage. Through the insurance mechanism, a significant proportion of losses arising from natural disasters, man-made disasters and other unforeseen events are compensated. Insurance ensures the continuity of public production, as well as contributes to maintaining a stable level of costs at enterprises and the standard of living of the population. Therefore, the degree of development of the insurance market is one of the most important indicators of the country's economic maturity, its potential for stability and readiness to overcome market downturns and various economic and political shocks. The state of the insurance market in Africa reflects, therefore, the prospects for the formation of a modern, stable market economy in the region that can adapt to rapidly changing environmental conditions.

I

Indicators of the insurance market development are derived from indicators of growth in the real sector of the economy due to the fact that the largest part of insurance premiums worldwide, in addition to life insurance, is accounted for by insurance of corporate property, construction and installation risks and motor transport. Therefore, given the weak development of industry in most African countries, the narrowness of the insurance market in the region can be considered a natural phenomenon. Thus, in 2002, insurance costs in Egypt and Nigeria amounted to 0.5% of GDP, in Algeria - 0.6%, in Kenya-3.5%, in Zimbabwe - slightly more than 4% (for comparison: in South Korea-more than 12%, and in the UK-15%) [Sigma, 2003, N 8]. These figures reflect Africa's large insurance gap with both developed and newly industrialized countries.

In 2003, all insurance companies in Africa raised $ 31 billion. That is, just over 1% of the global volume of insurance premiums. Moreover, 82% of this amount fell on the Republic of South Africa. Other notable insurance markets on the continent include Morocco (4%), Egypt (1.8%), Zimbabwe (1.5%), Tunisia (1.5%) and Nigeria (1.3%). Most of the insurance premiums are collected in life insurance (71%, or $ 22 billion), while other types are much less developed (Drechsler and Jutting, 2005).

For a variety of socio-economic and political reasons, insurance markets in different countries in Africa are at different stages of development. To identify the main prerequisites for such a state, it is necessary to at least briefly trace their evolution, starting from the colonial period.

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At that time, the insurance market in Africa was dominated by branches of European companies. They insured mainly the risks of sea transportation of agricultural products in the metropolis. The local population was subsistence farmers, and insurers offered them and European migrants only motor transport and commercial risk insurance, while reinsurance was provided exclusively by their head offices in Europe1.

As the colonies gained political independence, many of the African branches of European insurance companies were nationalized, and their technical reserves were invested in local assets.2 African Governments have set out to create national insurance markets in an effort to mobilize domestic investment resources and avoid foreign currency outflows in the form of insurance and reinsurance premiums. This course was favored by the UN position. In the 1960s, UNCTAD officially recognized the importance of insurance in the liberated countries for accelerating their economic development and free trade, and promoted the adoption by African parliaments of a number of draft laws formalizing insurance legal relations [Nduna, 2002, p. 18].

In the 1960s, a favorable economic climate and some liberalization of legislation led to the rapid formation of national insurance markets, which were dominated by mixed, joint-stock companies with state participation and, in some cases, foreign insurers. Risks were transferred to reinsurance, mainly to large German and Swiss reinsurers. In the same period, the first reinsurance organizations were created, which were fully owned by the state: Egypt Re (Egypt, 1958), Societe Centrale de Reassurance (Morocco, 1961), Caisse Nationale de Reassurance (Cameroon, 1961), Kenya Re (Kenya, 1970) [http://www.africa-re.com/areport/p3.pdf]. Reinsurers had no freedom of action, as they were required to accept strictly defined shares of risks from local insurers for reinsurance.

Since the early 1970s, there has been a certain "bifurcation" of insurance policies in Africa, in line with the political trends of the time. Some countries (mostly more or less "socialist-oriented" ones) have monopolized the insurance industry, leaving it entirely in the hands of state-owned companies. Others maintained a competitive environment in direct insurance, but at the same time cultivated a strong player in the market in the person of a state insurer. The state monopoly was introduced by 22 countries: Angola, Mozambique, Swaziland, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Seychelles, Madagascar, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Congo, Nigeria, Zaire, Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Ghana. An example of a somewhat more "soft" policy is Morocco. There, after the nationalization of the industry in 1973, which employed 265 foreign insurers, only 22 remained.

Nationalization had two goals: to prevent the outflow of foreign currency abroad through reinsurance channels by increasing its own retention under direct insurance contracts; and to promote the investment of technical reserves within the country. During the period of monopolized market in Africa, six state-owned reinsurance companies were also established in Ghana, Algeria, Tunisia, and Sudan

1 An insurer, or insurance company, is a legal entity established in accordance with the legislation for the purpose of providing insurance services and having a license to carry out insurance activities; reinsurance is insurance by one insurer under the conditions specified in the reinsurance contract of the risk of fulfilling all or part of its obligations to the policyholder from another insurer.

2 Technical reserves are cash reserves created under insurance contracts to cover upcoming payments.

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and Nigeria [http://www.africa-re.com/areport/p3.pdf]. The performance of state insurers and reinsurers in that period cannot be clearly assessed, as it varied greatly from country to country and from company to company. However, despite their lack of managerial experience, severely limited own funds and political interference by the authorities, they undoubtedly made a significant contribution to the development of the insurance industry.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the opposite trend began to manifest itself in the African economy: under pressure from the World Bank, which launched a program of economic structural transformation, markets began to move towards liberalization, and the form of ownership - from public to private. These changes have not spared the direct insurance and reinsurance markets, which have also been subject to liberalization, privatization and deregulation procedures. Until recently, Swaziland and Madagascar maintained a state monopoly on insurance, but these countries eventually abandoned it. Contrary to the good intentions of the authors of the structural transformation programs, their implementation, according to Albert Nduna, one of the managers of the ZIMRE insurance company (Zimbabwe), undermined the relatively effective activities of African reinsurers, who lost a critical mass of risks received under mandatory assignment agreements from local insurers, who reoriented themselves to the international reinsurance market with the beginning of the reforms [Nduna, 2002, p. 20]. Some of the reinsurers did not survive the competition and were liquidated, for example, reinsurance companies of Mauritius (Reinsurance company of Mauritius) and Cameroon (Caisse Nationale de Reassurance) [http://www.africa-re.com/areport/p3.pdf].

By 1998, Africa had developed an insurance market with relatively liberal government regulation and an overwhelming majority of non-State ownership participants. By that time, there were 580 insurance companies on the continent, including 157 in Nigeria, 120 in South Africa, and 41 in Kenya. In 2004, the total number of African insurers was 550 [http://www.africare.com/areport/p3.pdf]. As a result of further measures to liberalize local markets, a large number of new insurance companies were established in East Africa: Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia.

The liberalization of insurance markets should not be understood as a refusal of the state to regulate them. It means only a relative simplification of the procedure for entering the market and pluralism of ownership forms. At the same time, control over the activities of insurers and sanctions of supervisory authorities can be quite strict. For example, in South Africa, the Financial Services Committee strictly controls the maximum share of various types of assets in which life insurance reserves can be invested, and also prohibits payments under life insurance contracts for survival for the first five years [Adamchuk, 2004, p. 529]. In Zimbabwe, the Insurance Commission under the Ministry of Finance periodically changes the minimum allowable capital of a foreign insurer, strictly controls risks transferred to reinsurance abroad, and limits on its own retention of risks accepted for insurance. In addition, Zimbabwe requires an insurance company to have a rating that confirms its high level of development within the country, and obtain the appropriate permission before entering the foreign market [Adamchuk, 2004, p. 529]. Consequently, the liberalization of African insurance markets is very relative. (For comparison purposes: in the Russian insurance market, there are no restrictions either on ratings or on the transfer of risks to reinsurance abroad.)

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However, in other former British colonies, market regulation was quite different: in the Insurance Act of Nigeria of 1976, there were no regulatory requirements for the solvency of insurers and for their placement of technical reserves [Akintola-Bello, 1986, p.379]. However, the situation is changing: in Nigeria, a new Insurance Certificate has been in effect since 2003, and by the beginning of 2007, a new Insurance Certificate has been issued. all insurers and reinsurers were required to increase their authorized capital to new, increased standards, and the local regulator, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), no longer accepts borrowed funds from banks and real estate as payment for the authorized capital [Ezeokoli, 2006].

Summarizing the historical digression, we can say that the formation of the insurance market in Africa was influenced by the following factors::

1. "Colonial heritage" in the form of branches of European insurance companies. They brought standards, regulations and certain practices of insurance activity to the continent, which, of course, served as a good impulse and example for local insurers to follow, and they also became to some extent a "forge of personnel". European branches initially connected the African insurance market with the global reinsurance market, which significantly increased the capacity of the domestic market and laid down significant reserves for its growth. At the same time, foreign companies objectively hindered the emergence and activity of local competitors who claimed the same market niches.

2. Voluntary self-isolation. In post-independence countries with a "socialist orientation", the insurance market has narrowed to a few insurers, lost its ability to self-regulate through competition as well as through professional associations, and has come to a state of absolute or relative isolation from the outside world in general and from foreign reinsurers in particular, which has not contributed to the introduction of new insurance products and technologies.

3. Liberalization of the insurance market. The first two trends, while divergent (the first towards integration with the outside world, the second towards isolation), paradoxically complemented each other, contributing to the same phenomenon - the suppression of private entrepreneurship on the ground, which resulted in the inability of most African countries to create a strong and relatively independent national insurance market from foreign investment. Under such conditions, liberalization was not always timely, and it did not always contribute to the recovery of the insurance market.

II

The above conclusions apply to the region as a whole, but the situation may be different in individual countries. Thus, insurance premiums in South Africa account for the largest share of GDP in the world - 18.78%. This is because, to a large extent, workers ' social insurance is provided by employers from private insurers. Voluntary health insurance has developed more than might be expected in many African countries due to the lack of compulsory health insurance, which forces many employers to purchase private health policies for their employees. The market for voluntary health insurance is best developed in South Africa, while Namibia and Zimbabwe show good indicators for the continent, although only 8% of the population in Zimbabwe still has voluntary health insurance policies (Drechsler and Jutting, 2005).

The place of African countries in the insurance markets is shown in the table (Figures are calculated for 11 African countries with insurance premiums exceeding $ 100 million).:

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Table

Level of insurance development in Africa, 2002

Total amount of insurance premiums, USD mln. USA

Growth rate, %

Country's share in the global insurance market, %

Premiums per capita, US $

Insurance in general

Other types than life insurance

Life insurance

Total

24120

7.7

0.92

-

-

-

SOUTH AFRICA

19610

7.1

0.75

425.3

64.8

360.5

Morocco

1097

8.9

0.04

37.0

24.8

12.2

Egypt

507

3.5

0.02

7.8

5.4

2.4

Tunisia

379

11.4

0.01

38.8

35.5

3.2

Nigeria

304

3.2

0.01

2.5

2.1

0.5

Kenya

369

22.1

0.01

11.6

8.5

3.0

Algeria

365

31.2

0.01

11.7

11.2

0.5

Zimbabwe

174

n / a

0.01

13.5

5.7

7.8

Ivory Coast

184

4.6

0.01

9.7

6.5

3.2

Mauritania

207

9.0

0.01

171.0

67.4

103.7

Libya

149

-18.1

0.01

24.1

21.7

1.8

Other countries

945

-

0.04

-

-

-

-----

Source: [Sigma, 2002, N 9].

The reasons for the slow development of the insurance market in Africa should be sought not only in subjective factors - the shortcomings of the insurance companies themselves, but also primarily in objective constraints both on the supply side-due to structural "distortions" of the national economy, and on the demand side - due to the underdevelopment of the consumer market.

If we talk about the structure of the national economy, then the scale and growth rate of the illegal economy in the region are fundamentally important for understanding the reasons for the narrowness of the insurance field. Insurance, by its economic nature, is a tool for protecting property interests precisely and only in the legal sector of the economy, since it requires data on the economic activity of the policyholder, confirmed by state statistical and tax accounting authorities. In addition, insurance legal relations are impossible without preventive measures to reduce risks on the part of the policyholder (fire and other), which are out of the question in the illegal sector. In addition to the illegal economy in Africa, there is also a completely legal traditional sector, mainly represented by agriculture, handicrafts and handicrafts. Sometimes intertwined with the shadow economy, the traditional sector coexists with the latest modern sector, which is built on commodity-money relations, modern technical and technological basis and is largely focused on the world market. Such a "symbiosis" of economic structures that are alien to each other both in financial, economic and technical terms hinders the development of insurance. At the same time, the practice of issuing micro-loans by banks and insurance companies to small farmers and artisans is beginning to spread in Africa. These financial services are designed specifically for participants in the informal sector of the economy who, for the reasons mentioned above, do not have access to normal banking and insurance services. However, "microinsurance" is unprofitable for insurers due to the high unit costs of doing business, therefore, it cannot take on an economically significant scale, it has only an "image" value, similar to an advertising or other marketing campaign.

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If we consider the peculiarities of the African consumer market, then its fundamental characteristic is the lack of stable effective demand. Insurance services are not included, as you know, in the list of the most necessary goods and services for a person, the elasticity of demand for insurance is similar to the elasticity of demand for luxury furniture, cars, recreation and education, i.e. interest in insurance services arises among the general population only after they achieve a certain material well-being, which is not observed in African countries. The State can artificially stimulate the development of the insurance market by introducing mandatory types of insurance, but this method is rejected in the least developed countries for the same reason - the extremely limited capacity of consumers to pay. Many African States, following in the wake of the legislative trends of their former metropolitan countries, have nevertheless adopted laws on compulsory insurance of civil liability of motor vehicle owners and laws on insurance of civil liability of employers to employees; the latter, however, is not always mandatory, it can also be carried out on a voluntary basis. These types of insurance served as the basis, if not always solid, for the "superstructure" of other voluntary types of life, civil liability and property insurance.

Insurance activity is negatively impacted by galloping inflation, which is typical for many African countries, unstable exchange rates and frequent devaluations, which lead to an imbalance in insurance premiums and insurance payments as a result of recalculation at the new exchange rate. The development of the insurance business is negatively affected by the legislative "stagnation", in which the insurance regulatory framework does not react in any way to changes in the external environment in its country and even more so in the world, thereby preventing the introduction of new, progressive insurance products and schemes, but opening up space for fraudsters to operate. For example, in Malawi, the only law regulating insurance relations, the Insurance Act, has not been changed since 1957 (except for changes related to the replacement of the pound sterling in the country with the national currency kwacha).

Yet insurance is still developing on the continent. Common trends for the entire insurance market in Africa are the standardization and unification of the work of insurers with branches and representative offices in different countries of the continent, the offer of "package" insurance of several different risks, the emerging pension insurance, the trend towards advanced training and internships of insurers in large Western companies. In African countries, such as Malawi, insurance training institutions are being opened (the Insurance Institute of Malawi cooperates with the British Chartered Insurance Institute). The continent's leading insurance companies are Sarima (South Africa), ZIMRE (Zimbabwe), NICOZ (Zimbabwe), Private (Zimbabwe), UGIC (Zimbabwe), Royal Insurance (Tanzania), Jubilee Insurance (Tanzania). Among the insurers in Africa, there are multinational companies, mainly in the Republic of South Africa and Zimbabwe, a country that, due to its geographical proximity and economic ties with South Africa, has made very significant progress in the development of insurance. There are 17 insurance companies and 6 professional reinsurers operating in Zimbabwe. Until 1983, insurance was provided only by branches of foreign companies, but for the last 20 years the country has had an extremely successful national insurer ZIMRE [Adamchuk, 2004, p.529].

Branches of this largest insurer from Zimbabwe can be found in all countries of East Africa, including Zambia. The company has extensive experience and a high level of professional competence of its staff, a good asset structure, and strong ties with the world's leading reinsurers. In the ZIMRE perspective

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It plans to become one of the leaders in the direct insurance and reinsurance market not only in Africa, but also in the Middle East, which is not without economic reasons. The subsidiary reinsurance company ZIMRE SA collects up to 70% of all reinsurance premiums in the Zimbabwe market. Among the leading Zimbabwean insurers, it is necessary to mention NICOZ, which specializes in fire insurance, car insurance, marine and aircraft insurance. In terms of dollars, NICOZ's annual premium collection amounts to more than 200 million rubles, which roughly corresponds to the fees of the Russian insurance group UralSib, which is one of the top ten leaders in the Russian insurance market.

Old Mutual (South Africa), founded in 1845 and has been successfully operating in the South African market ever since, is another example of an extremely efficient multinational insurer. The company provides life insurance and asset management services in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States, and its shares are listed on the London, Johannesburg, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Malawi stock exchanges. The South African Mutual & Federal Insurance Company Ltd. is engaged in other types of insurance than life insurance, it has branches in Namibia and Botswana. In 1998, the company, together with Old Mutual, acquired 41% of the capital of the Zimbabwean insurer The Royal Group. One of the few insurance companies on the continent that specializes only in aviation insurance is South Africa Eagle (South Africa). In the second half of 2002, the company made a profit of RAND 4.9 million, with an annual increase of 23% [Adamchuk, 2004, p. 524].

The Royal & Sun Alliance company is active and holds leading positions in the insurance markets of Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, etc. In particular, in the market of Tanzania, it promotes insurance products that are fundamentally new for this country: public sector risk insurance, civil liability insurance, and business risk insurance. After the change of the political system in Tanzania at the end of the XX century and the adoption of a liberal course of economic policy, insurance companies began to return to the country, now 11 companies are officially registered there. In particular, Jubilee Insurance, currently the leading national company collecting 15% of all insurance premiums, has returned to the market. Jubilee Insurance plans to make a number of acquisitions in order to expand its presence in the east of the African continent. Currently, Jubilee Insurance and Royal & Sun Alliance play a significant role in the Kenyan insurance market, but due to the small market capacity and the presence of a large number of competing insurance organizations in the country, insurance activities are on the verge of breaking even.

Nigeria's insurance market is booming: the reinsurance company Continental Reinsurance, which recently increased its authorized capital to $ 10 billion in accordance with the law. Nigerian naira (approximately US $ 74 million). It provides reinsurance services in 35 African countries. It receives 35% of its revenue from overseas operations and has a branch in Cameroon covering 18 French-speaking countries on the continent. The company's strategy is focused not only on Africa, but also on the Middle East, where it plans to open a representative office. In the near future, Continental Re will be listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, i.e. it will become a public company. In addition, due to the need to increase the authorized capital, four major Nigerian insurers have merged and created the Regency Alliance pic insurance group. The insurance company Trust World Insurance Company Ltd. went the other way: she found a consortium of investors who will invest 2.8 billion rubles in the company. Nigerian naira (almost $ 21 million). US$). Among the" prosperous " Nigerian insurers can also be called Vigilant Insurance Company Ltd., Oasis Insurance Company Ltd., NFC Insurance Company Pic, Industrial & General Insurance Company [Ezeokoli, 2006].

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In Uganda, the National Insurance Corporation should be noted, which, as a state-owned company, made losses, but after privatization became profitable and in 2006 for the first time paid dividends to shareholders in the amount of 282 million Ugandan shillings (approximately $ 146 thousand). USA) [Bwogi, 2006]. Two companies stand out in the Tunisian insurance market: STAR (Tunisian Insurance and Reinsurance Society) and Cotunace. The latter specializes exclusively in insurance of risks associated with foreign trade activities. In Algeria, the largest market share is controlled by the insurance company S. A. A. T., which insures the property interests of the gas monopoly Sonelgaz.

Any direct insurance market requires reinsurance capacities (opportunities for taking risks in reinsurance), which can be provided by ordinary insurance companies or professional reinsurers. Without transferring risks to reinsurance, a full-fledged direct insurance market cannot develop, so the emergence of a large regional reinsurer on the African continent was dictated by objective necessity. Such reinsurer is Africa Re (African Reinsurance Corporation) It was established in 1976 in Cameroon by the plenipotentiaries of 36 member countries of the Organization of African Unity and the African Development Bank to reduce the outflow of foreign currency from the continent through reinsurance channels. Currently, 41 countries participate in Africa Re Corporation, and the African Development Bank is still its largest shareholder.

III

Despite some signs of progress, insurance and reinsurance companies in Africa are experiencing some of the most serious problems in their operations. One of the most important is discrimination in reinsurance of risks in companies based in Western Europe and North America. African companies often find it difficult to find suitable reinsurance capacities, especially for large and complex risks, due to the fact that reinsurance is offered to them under very strict exceptions and excessively inflated deductibles and tariff rates. This is usually attributed to too low ratings of African countries, which all international rating agencies attribute a high level of country risk.

Such estimates are also due to frequent deferral of payments under reinsurance contracts, which increases the cost of retrocession. The international reinsurance market prefers to avoid massive risks from the African continent, engaging in enhanced selection and selecting only individual, most attractive risks from the total mass. This poses a serious threat to insurers in Africa, which, faced with the discriminatory conditions of international reinsurers, are forced, in turn, to increase the cost of insurance services for their clients under direct insurance contracts.

African reinsurers experience a certain anti-selection (partner selection) from foreign companies, even in their own national markets. Major foreign reinsurers choose only well-known African insurance companies as their partners, and the currency of the reinsurance contract and settlement must be a hard currency-usually the euro or the US dollar. In order to effectively counter such anti-selectionism, African companies must work to improve their solvency, which leads to an improved rating, increase their capitalization and retention rates, thereby increasing market capacity, and constantly improve the professional level of their personnel and technical standards of service.-

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customer expectations. In addition, a necessary condition for overcoming anti-selectionism is a change in the approach of rating agencies to African insurance and reinsurance companies; rating assessments could be given more independently and objectively than is currently the case. For their part, companies operating in the African reinsurance market could work more closely together and see each other as partners rather than competitors.

Insurers and reinsurers in Africa face the problem of limited reinsurance capacities due to their low capitalization, which is also exacerbated by inflationary processes that devalue their own funds when converted into hard currency. Low or negative economic growth in Africa has a negative impact on insurers ' investment income, profitability and equity growth, which in turn reduces opportunities to increase reinsurance capacity.

In many cases, African reinsurers find it difficult to attract foreign direct investment due to exaggerated country risk. This situation forces them to accept only very small amounts of liability in reinsurance, which causes rejection on the part of reinsurers. The limited size of their own funds also prevents them from accepting reinsurance risks from abroad and earning a reinsurance premium in hard currency.

Currency restrictions are a serious problem in the development of the African insurance market, which needs to be covered in more detail. Most direct insurance contracts on the African continent are concluded in local non-convertible currencies, while reinsurance contracts, due to their cross-border economic nature, are concluded in hard currency, which is constantly in short supply in almost all African States. Premium payments under reinsurance and retrocession contracts, as well as compensation payments under these contracts, are also made in hard currency. Due to insufficient foreign exchange reserves, late payments under reinsurance contracts have become a common practice in African countries. Most of the local reinsurers do not have a satisfactory rating precisely because international rating agencies have reasonable doubts about their ability to find hard currency to pay compensation abroad. And the lack of a good rating, in turn, does not allow reinsurers to earn a premium in hard currency, which can then be used to pay out refunds. The systematic devaluation of local currencies against the US dollar and euro effectively means that assignors ' risk reinsurance costs in Western Europe and the United States cannot be controlled. Moreover, the shortage of hard currency also creates inconvenience in the domestic market, as many policyholders and reinsurers in Africa prefer to enter into contracts in a foreign freely convertible currency.

The above factors significantly hinder the development of African reinsurance. To solve the currency problem, the intervention of state authorities is necessary, which should simplify the legislative procedures for currency control and allow local reinsurers to open accounts in any foreign currency and write off any amounts from them, if they are stipulated by the reinsurance contract.

Returning to the problems of limited reinsurance capacity, it should be emphasized that they can be solved in two ways: either at the governmental or interstate level, by creating reinsurance pools, as well as national or international reinsurance organizations that combine capacities

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a large number of market participants (Africa Re is a good example of such an organization), or by increasing regulatory requirements for the authorized capital and own funds of insurance and reinsurance organizations. You should increase the amount of your own funds either by issuing additional shares of the company, or by using other financial instruments, such as entering the stock exchanges, while you should strive for the amount of your own funds that is much higher than the minimum regulatory level. An increase in own funds automatically leads to an increase in own risk deduction, which, provided that underwriting is skilful, is a prerequisite for an increase in premium fees and an increase in profitability.

In Africa, as well as in industrialized countries, there are potential opportunities to create financially sustainable insurers through mergers and acquisitions, if the shareholders of each individual company are not able to increase its capitalization. As cooperation between African States intensifies, the likelihood of investment in local insurance companies increases, especially from insurers representing more economically developed countries in Africa and having a similar risk portfolio. At the same time, geographical diversification of insurers ' assets becomes a necessary condition for regional development. Currently, there is an objective need to reduce barriers between national insurance markets, which would simplify investment processes in interstate mergers and acquisitions of insurance companies. Mutual opening of insurance markets would lead to an influx of capital and reinsurance risks to African companies from other regions. In addition to encouraging cross-border transactions involving shares and shares of insurance companies, there is a need to support and promote insurance and reinsurance pools (associations of insurers) at the continental level, such as the African Oil and Energy Pool, the Aviation Pool, and the resumption of the African Fire Risk Insurance Pool.

Along with the development of cooperation within the continent, it would be useful for insurers in Africa to cooperate with insurance companies from neighboring Asian countries that have significant reinsurance capacities and, in turn, are united in pools, such as the FAIR Reinsurance Pool in Turkey, the FAIR Oil and Energy Pool in Bahrain,etc. Only under the condition of national, regional and international cooperation. For the continental African and inter-continental Afro-Asian consolidation of reinsurance capacities, the prospects for obtaining favorable conditions for placing risks in a retrocession in the traditional markets of London, continental Europe and North America seem more realistic.

The lack of education and skills of insurance industry workers is also a distinctive feature of African countries. This factor makes itself felt due to the global nature of insurance and reinsurance services, when the competitive disadvantages and advantages of the insurance market of any country are quickly identified. African insurers face the challenge of improving the knowledge and technical skills of their employees, especially in actuarial calculations, loss settlement, risk management, risk underwriting, and information technology development. Inter-regional and international exchanges of senior management personnel could also be more actively pursued, especially with countries with more extensive experience in the insurance industry.

It would make sense for leading insurers in Africa to establish African insurance education centers at the company level or at the national level, like the National Insurance Academy in India or a Charter Insurance Institute

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The Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN), which already exists in Nigeria, and in Malawi - the Insurance Institute, opened with the support of a similar institute in London.

The insurance industry in the African region traditionally relies on the experience of industrialized countries, which is often expressed in mindless copying of existing insurance products in Europe (insurance services developed for a specific target group of consumers) instead of developing new ones adapted to local conditions. Some of the insurance services offered by African insurers do not meet the requirements of the national insurance market and do not take into account the demand of the local population and businesses. Insurers do not sufficiently take into account the features of urbanization and the agricultural specialization of the national economy and offer mainly rural population insurance policies designed for urban residents.

A study conducted in Zimbabwe in the field of so-called rural insurance confirms that market premium charges could increase by at least 25% if local insurers managed to insure at least half of the property and livestock in rural areas (Zaman and Mekonnen, 1993). In addition, only the first steps have been taken so far in preparing a scientific and methodological basis for calculating property insurance rates. For example, a natural disaster research center was recently opened in Morocco, and the South African Special Risk Association (SASRIA) was formed in South Africa for the same purpose. In Zimbabwe, there is a Special Risk Consortium designed to bring together insurers who take on political risks.

African insurers pay insufficient attention and funding to the development of information technology. Most companies are completely dependent on purchasing hardware and software in Europe. The cost of technical support and modernization of imported computer programs and databases is quite high, which increases the cost of insurance services.

A major problem for the development of the insurance market in many countries of the continent is the weakness of insurance supervisory authorities, which are obliged to protect shareholders and policyholders from the consequences of insolvency or bankruptcy of insurance companies, as well as regulate tariff policies, capital inflows into the insurance industry, curb unfair competition, and monitor the level of legality of various insurance schemes. The above-mentioned tasks are usually carried out using licensing tools, accounting control, etc.This requires well-trained personnel and a solid material and technical base, including modern computer equipment, databases and software, which in many African countries are not available or do not meet the requirements of users. These problems of insurance development are of an intra-industry nature, do not have any impact on the general political and economic situation in the country, and remain invisible to policyholders until the occurrence of an insured event and the need for insurance payments.

Thus, to overcome the backwardness in the insurance industry, there is an extensive set of tools, one part of which is used by government agencies, and the other-by the insurance companies themselves. The first group of instruments includes the reduction of barriers between national insurance markets, the modernization of the insurance legal framework, which is in a state of stagnation in many countries of the continent, and the adjustment of currency policy, which is expressed in the fight against inflation, the refusal to devalue the national currency, and reasonable easing of currency control measures for reinsurance companies. At the same time, many African States could step up the activities of insurance supervisors.

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The second group includes such measures as the development of information technologies and scientific and methodological base, professional development of insurance companies ' employees in actuarial calculations, loss settlement, risk management, risk underwriting, adjustment of marketing policies to meet the real needs of the population, closer cooperation with colleagues from other countries of the region and from Asian countries in the field of insurance management. parts of coinsurance and reinsurance.

list of literature

Adamchuk N. G. Mirovoi strakhovoi rynok na puti k globalizatsii [World insurance Market on the way to globalization]. Moscow: ROSPEN, 2004.

Akintola-Bello O. Investment behaviour of insurance companies in Nigeria // Savings and Development. Vol. 10. 1986. N 4.

Zaman M. A., Mekonnen M. Case Studies on Rural Insurance in Africa. Adis Ababa: UN Economic Commission for Africa, 1993.

Drechsler D., Jutting J. P. Private Health Insurance in Low- and Middle-income Countries. Scope, Limitations, and Policy Responses // OECD Development Centre "Le Seine St. Germain". March 2005.

Ezeokoli Ch. Recapitalization: Insurers predict better prospects for underwriting industry // The Guardian (Lagos). 28.08.2006.

Bwogi Ch. National Insurance pays 282m in dividends // The New Vision. 28.08.2006.

Nduna A. Reinsurance Industry Challenges in Africa. Johannesburg, 2002.

Sigma. 2002. N 9; 2003. N 8 (www.swissre.com)

http://www.africa-re.com/areport/p3.pdf

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