Continental Reinsurance honour African journalists at CEO Summit

Leading Pan African Reinsurance firm, Continental Reinsurance Plc has announced winners of the 2019 Pan African Re/Insurance Journalism Awards at its annual 6th CEO Summit in Mauritius.

Patrick Alushula, a Kenyan Business Journalist from Nation Media Group bagged the Overall Award, Pan African Journalist of the Year. His article titled ‘Despite low uptake, funeral cover can’t be buried away’ also emerged the Best Re/Insurance Print Article [English]. In his article, Patrick explored how insurance cover can support bereaved families by helping them lessen the financial burden associated with funerals.

The Overall Award was selected from Best Re/Insurance Print Article, Best Re/Insurance Online Article and Best Re/Insurance French Article categories.

Katya Stead, a South African Journalist who writes for Commercial Risk Africa won the Best Re/Insurance Online Article award [English]. Her article ‘Banking the change: How insurers in banking will change insurance too, looks at how African insurers like Discovery are taking on the banking sector and the ways in which this will change not only banking but also Africa’s insurance narrative.

For the French category, Sara Bar-rhout, Economie Entreprises, Morocco emerged the winner for the Best Re/Insurance French Article award. In her article, titled TRC et RCD, Jackpot Du Secteur?, Sara explains the issues and motivations behind making mandatory, two insurance contracts to cover two construction sites, the TRC (All Construction Risks) and the RCD (Decennial Civil Liability) in Morocco.

This year’s edition received a total of 66 entries (58 English & 6 French) from 14 African Countries. Commenting on the entries, Michael Wilson, Chief Judge of the 2019 Awards noted that “Each year, the entries achieve a higher standard, and always cast an interesting view over a wealth of insurance stories. This year was no exception.”

Under the chairmanship of Michael Wilson, the Judging Panel held a meeting on 30th January 2019 to select finalists and winners. The judges agreed to award a French entry in place of a Broadcast one, which they thought did not meet the minimum threshold.

They also recommended to have separate French category in future editions of the awards to acknowledge the huge importance of Francophone Africa to the Insurance industry and give more voice to its stories.

Speaking at the Awards Ceremony, Dr. Femi Oyetunji,  Group Managing Director/CEO, Continental Reinsurance Plc said, “I am proud to note that the quality of entries submitted improves in every edition. This is a demonstration that our efforts to encourage insurance reporting are bearing fruit.”

“My appreciation goes to the entire panel for sparing time to read, assess and evaluate the entries. And Congratulations to the winners and all the 2019 edition, and to all those who participated in the awards. We will be looking forward to your entries in the 2020 edition.”

The prizes for the winners included: A fully paid trip for all category winners to attend the Awards Ceremony and Continental Re’s 6th CEO summit in Mauritius on March 28th and 29th 2019, a fully paid trip for the overall winner to attend Commercial Risk Africa (CRA) training in London, UK including a one-week internship, a cash prize of USD2000 for the overall winner, USD1000 for the category winners and USD500 for the 1st and 2nd runner-up, two-day training and mentorship by Commercial Risk Africa (CRA) Magazine on insurance reporting for all the winners and certificates for all finalists for being shortlisted in the 2019 awards.

The winners and finalists are Pan African Journalist of the Year- Patrick Alushula, Nation Media Group, Kenya. Alushula also won Best Re/Insurance Print article [English] over Isaac Khisa, The Independent, Uganda and Patience Rusare The Patriot Newspaper, Zimbabwe.

Katya Stead of CRA, South Africa won best Re/Insurance Online Article [English], beating Samuel Sanya of New Vision, Uganda and Lazarus Sauti of 263Chat.com, Zimbabwe.

Sara Bar-rhout of Economie Entreprises, Morocco beat Ghyslaine Deudjui of Le Financier d’Afrique, Cameroon and Kpokame Hermann of La Radio Nationale du Bénin, Benin to win best Re/Insurance French Article.