Chukwuemeka Onwuliri

Professor Festus Chukwuemeka Onwuliri got his Ph.D at the age of 35years from University of Jos. He has previously had his B.Sc., M.Sc and AIML from   the University of Nigeria Nsukka, University of Jos and Medical Laboratory College Vom, Nigeria respectively. He has acquired a wide range of administrative experience. He was the Head of Department of Plant Science and Technology, University of Jos and is the Director of Victory medical laboratory service, Jos Nigeria.

Professor F. C. Onwuliri has published about 65 papers in both national and international Journals. He has supervised 54 Post Graduate students both at Ph.D and M.Sc levels in the area of Microbiology and Biotechnology. He has also supervised over 150 undergraduate students. He has held several other positions and served in several committees, both ad-hoc and statutory, within the University of Jos and other Universities in Nigeria.

He has several memberships including memberships Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria, Nigerian Society for Microbiology, Nigerian Mycological Society, Botanical Society of Nigeria, Nigerian Society for Parasitology, Biotechnology Society of Nigeria, International Biotechnology. Professor Onwuliri participated in the 4th world congress on Biotechnology in  North Carolina, USA and the 5th world congress on Biotechnology in Valencia, Spain. He has many Scholastic Honours and Awards.

credit insurance

What Is Trade Credit Insurance?

One of the most challenging issues that businesses face, regardless of their size, is ensuring payment for their goods and services. Despite this, many are unaware of trade credit insurance and how it can assist businesses by minimising exposure and risk. 

Credit Insurance

Credit insurance protects the money due for goods and services that have already been supplied to a customer. As highlighted in the recent recession, declining sales and unforeseen circumstances can mean that even good customers with the best of intentions can struggle to meet their previously agreed payment terms. As a result, customers' cashflow problems are passed on to their creditors, which in turn means that they may also struggle to meet their payment commitments.

This acts as a cushion against the impact of defaulting customers and the bad debts that would otherwise arise when a customer is unable to meet their payment terms (or in situations where the customer goes bankrupt). Effectively any payment risk is passed on to the insurer. This means that with a trade credit insurance policy in place, a large percentage (often up to 90%) of the outstanding debt will be covered.

Credit insurance providers can also help businesses plan ahead by alerting their clients to potential risks, should a particular company become uninsurable. In some cases cover may be withdrawn but the insurer will honour the cover provided up until a given date when the insurance was withdrawn. This helps prevent a domino effect of bad debt where one company cannot pay its debts which then has a knock on effect to their suppliers, and their suppliers in turn.

Credit insurance providers can also assist businesses in decisions about who to trade with, therefore helping them to trade more securely and reducing potential trading risks.

Furthermore, businesses that have a clearly defined credit insurance policy in place are often able to benefit from more favourable finance terms and funding requests from banks.

Joanne Aaron is a corporate communications manager at Atradius.

The Atradius Group provides trade credit insurance, bonding and collections services worldwide and has a presence in 42 countries.

Its products and services aim to help reduce its customers' exposure to buyers who fail to pay for the products and services they purchase.

credit insurance

Find Best Credit Insurance

The credit insurance(popularly known as payment protection insurance), originally developed in USA, has witnessed a spectacular growth throughout the world. This is because of enormous presence of credit culture in the western economies and subsequent protection for the lenders & consumers against the unforeseen events such as death, disability and unemployment of consumers losing his ability to repay the loan.

The term is primarily associated with a specific loan or line of credit that's design to mitigate the risks of the lender. And in today's credit happy society, its very much relevant. Apart from the lender's point of view of safe-guarding their financial interests over the lending money, borrowers ought to confirm that their families are safe and won't be in a debt trap. 

 

Just imagine, you are permanently disabled and have lost your job or steady flow of income and/or any extremity has happened to your life, what would be the miseries prevail in your family? And here comes the essence of credit (protection) insurance.

Although in today's credit happy world, this type of insurance is much common, you have to make sure that you have the proper credit plan that could adequately safe-guard you. In this case, its not only you who's an insurable interest, creditor or lender has a legal insurable insurance on your life (as a borrower or debtor).

credit insurance may be of three kinds, depending on the type of credit.

Decreasing Term Coverage for close-ended installment payment system. This is normally seen in case of mortgage, automobile, consumer, educational lending where the load balance decreases with repayment at regular intervals.

Ordinary Term Coverage for single payment loan where the loan repayment practice is in a single lump sum amount (single premium credit insurance) and the outstanding amount won't decrease.

Varying Amount Insurance Coverage in open-ended nature where the credit amount varies from month to month such as credit card loan. Normally the mortgage and loan-based credit insurance are more popular than varying amount credit insurance(open-ended). Make sure that at-least your loan amount must be covered by the credit insurer as a large portion of your borrowings may remain uncovered due to certain upper limit of coverages from the credit insurance company.

The important coverages are-

1. Death: In case of borrower's death, the claim amount is paid to the creditor or lender.

2. Disability: Claim, arising out of disability, is payable as per definition or contract of insurance which is again subject to a specific waiting or elimination period.

3. Unemployment: The benefit is payable if the borrower's lost his job, may be due to termination, lay-off, strikes, labor disputes. But the majority of credit insurance plans do not cover the conditions such as retirement, resignation or illness.

Trade Credit Insurance – Beneficial For Manufacturers

Generally, when viewing the balance sheet of any organization, it will be possible to find that the accounts receivable represents to nearly 40% of their assets. But, in the present challenging business environment, non payment of any of these accounts receivable can turn out to be a great financial and operational threat for any organization. For instance, if one of the customers, does not pay an amount of $1,00,000 invoice from a company that has a 5% profit margin, the organization will have to generate $2 million in addition to balancing the default payment by the customer.  The reason for default payment can be anything from the point of view of the customer and the risk profile will further bring down the ability to pay the money, if the financial situation worsens.


The present competitive business arena can squeeze the margins of the organization and so it is highly important that the business organization should take effective care of the accounts receivables. But, this item in the asset portion of the balance sheet of any organization can be surprisingly volatile. Something that looked like a stable business environment at one situation can turn out to be a disarray on the next day. However, there is a proven solution for protecting the potential accounts receivable for a business. Even this solution can help them in expanding sales and it is nothing but trade credit insurance.

Regardless of whether a company is trading with established customers or whether they are seeking for new markets, they can make use of trade credit insurance for protecting their cash flow and balance sheet against a sudden shock of non-payments.

What is this insurance?

This credit insurance is a tool that can be used by companies for bringing down or eliminating the risk associated with non-payment of commercial debt. If the client of a policyholder of this insurance, does not pay the obligated money, the insurance company will make good on the obligation. This will permit the organization to bring down the risk it might incur, when they are talking with a new or unknown client. It will also help when some unforeseen economic, business and other factors prevent the client from making the payment.

This credit insurance also enables organizations to cultivate clients in different geographical locations and they can also get the chance to expand their business with existing customers and even they can extend more credit to their customers. All these things can be done without increasing the risk of non payment.