Presentation

CIMA IS A LONG PROCESS

It all started with the International Conference of Insurance Controls (CICA) which was born in 1962. It was concerned with preserving the proper functioning of insurance companies and agencies established in the former French colonies of West, Central Africa and in Madagascar.

Thus, on July 27, 1962, a Convention was signed between thirteen African States which are: Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Togo, Madagascar and France.

The main objectives were :

a) harmonization of national laws and regulations;

b) coordinating the exercise of corporate control;

c) coordinating the training of African insurance executives.

As African executives are trained and the states realize the importance of this sector for the economy of their country, other measures are planned to ensure the development of national insurance markets. The idea is spreading with the assistance of UNCTAD to create companies with wholly or predominantly national capital and led by national executives. The other concern was to limit the flight of capital through reinsurance.

In order to achieve these objectives, a more African CICA was needed. A new convention was signed between twelve (12) African States (those designated above), with the exception of Madagascar and France) on November 27, 1973. The headquarters of the CICA was then transferred from Paris to Libreville in 1976 France remains a simple observer.

In 1990, a diagnosis revealed a persistent deterioration of the insurance markets :

·          mismanagement of most national societies;

·          ineffective control services at national level;

·          impotence of CICA as a body of control and harmonization at the regional level;

·          unsuitable prices;

·          plethora of intermediaries;

·          absence of financial market;

·          absence of a compensation scale adapted to the tariff in automobile insurance, hence disparate and exaggerated convictions at the level of the courts;

·          weak life insurance;

·          national markets too small to allow satisfactory development of the insurance industry.

 

This sad picture indicates that the various conventions have not made it possible in 30 years to see a harmonious development of the CICA insurance markets. This resulted in a noticeable decrease in turnover, an imbalance in the management of insurance companies with huge financial difficulties which led to the bankruptcy of many insurance companies.

 

On September 20, 1990 in Paris, during a Franc Zone meeting, a new cooperation agreement was signed by the same African states. This is the “Cooperation Agreement for the Promotion and Development of the Insurance Industry” (CCDPIA). It is characterized by the creation of a Council of Insurance Ministers (CMA) and an Inter-State Insurance Control Commission.

 

The CCDPIA is initiated by the Africans themselves who understood the absence of decision-making power of the CICA and the indifference of the public authorities vis-à-vis the studies and controls carried out by the CICA. However, before ratification by the majority of signatory states, the idea of ​​CIMA arose, the initiators of which strongly relied on the diagnosis of CICA indicated above. Thus, a working group was set up on the initiative of the Ministers of Finance of the Franc Zone in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) on April 25, 1991.

 

Despite this sad observation, it must be recognized that some precious achievements have seen the light of day under the aegis of CICA, namely the creation :

• of national societies;
• of national insurance control services;
• of the International Insurance Institute (IIA);
• of the Federation of Insurance Companies of African National Law (FANAF)
• of the Joint Reinsurance Company of the Member States of CICA (CICA-RE)

But it seems clear to us that the training of African executives, both of companies and of control in the same mold (the International Insurance Institute of Yaoundé), exchanges of experiences shared during the same seminars organized by the IIA , UNCTAD or FANAF, the use of harmonized (and not single or unified) legislation of common inspiration, are all factors that facilitated the creation and today the functioning of CIMA.

 

The CPDIA will therefore give way to the Treaty establishing an Integrated Organization of the Insurance Industry in African States with as community organization the Inter-African Conference on Insurance Markets in abbreviation CIMA signed on July 10, 1992 in Yaoundé (Republic of Cameroon) by the governments of the following member states: Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Chad and Togo. Of the fourteen (14) signatory states, only the Comoros has not yet ratified the Treaty.

The CIMA Treaty entered into force on February 15, 1995. It provides for the accession of any other African State which so wishes.

The number of CIMA member states increased from thirteen (13) to fourteen (14) with the accession of Guinea Bissau on April 15, 2002.