BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 7
By Eldar Janashvili - Trend:
The development of insurance business in Azerbaijan, its economic and business realities dictate the need to train highly qualified specialists, Trend reports referring to insurance expert Parviz Guliyev.
This includes training insurers with higher insurance education, the expert said.
“This is an urgent and most acute issue, the solution of which can guarantee much more intensive development of this segment of the financial sector of Azerbaijan’s economy,” Guliyev noted. “Creating a system of higher insurance education will require serious joint efforts of state bodies, higher educational institutions, the insurers themselves and their unions. Despite that certain work is being done in Azerbaijani universities, there are still no professional specialized educational centers in the country.”
The expert said that professional insurers are needed to uncover the potential of the insurance market.
“However, Azerbaijan’s State University of Economics is taking the initiative to create a specialized educational center for insurance,” Guliyev added. “The Education Ministry is also discussing the issue of training teaching staff.”
In turn, another insurance expert Kamran Babayev said that because insurance isn’t taught in any higher educational institution, there is an acute shortage of personnel and theoretical knowledge in the insurance market.
“There is no practice of teaching the specialization 'Insurance business' in universities, where students could fully receive theoretical knowledge, study insurance experience in Azerbaijan and abroad, the history of insurance development and insurance legislation,” Babayev noted. “As a result, the personnel acquire practical knowledge and skills only starting to work in insurance companies. Some of them don’t even have elementary theoretical knowledge.”
Comparing Azerbaijan’s insurance market with the US and European markets, it is possible to see very big differences, the expert added.
“The bigger the market, the more it needs professional personnel,” Babayev said. “Today, the development of the domestic insurance market dictates the need to train qualified specialists, the lack of which is felt very acute in the market. At the same time, it is necessary to train specialists in different, highly specialized segments of the insurance business - underwriters, actuaries, insurance claims settlement specialists, etc.”
“Accelerated pace of market development and regulatory framework, the introduction of technical and IT innovations requires attracting qualified human resources for effective practical application,” the expert added. “The issue of training the personnel involved in the development of business of insurance companies is of particular importance, since it is them who are called upon to promote insurance among the public and the business community, and introduce new insurance products. A lot of work remains to be done in this direction.”