The spate of market fires seems to continuously reoccur as fire has gutted over 200 shops and makeshift structures at the Makola Shopping Mall in Accra in recent times.

The fire which started around 11:00pm on Friday October 20, 2023 was safely brought under control within four and a half hours by personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS). It is not clear what started the fire but the GNFS says it is still investigating the cause of the fire.

Some of the items destroyed in this fire outbreak included wigs, perfumes, cosmetics and jewelries running into thousands of cedis but fortunately there were no casualties. This brings to bear the relevance of insurance in disasters like these.

The occurrence of market fires in Ghana is fast becoming a perennial affair. And usually, one major question that affected traders, concerned individuals and institutions ask when these fires occur is: ‘what is the Government doing about it?’. In these cases, the government is almost always called upon to compensate the affected vendors/traders.

Other questions that these market fire events evoke is ‘did the vendors have insurance for their stock?’ and in most cases the answer to this is that the traders had no insurance to cover the impact of these fires on their wares.

With the occurrence of these fires in Ghana, affected traders suffer financial distress, emotional trauma and some even lose their businesses to these fires. Those who manage to stay afloat or bounce back after these fire outbreaks usually experience long periods of interruption to their businesses. Hence, the need to encourage some of our business people in the markets to take insurance on their premises and wares.

Some markets in Ghana which have been affected with the spate of fire outbreaks over the years include: Kantamanto market, Agbogbloshie market, Old fadama market, Kaneshie central markets amongst others spread across the country. Owing to the high frequency of these fire outbreaks, the resultant damages and economic consequences, there is an urgent need for all stakeholders especially the insurance industry to come up with such tailor-made insurance packages and introduce them aggressively to the traders and business people who sell in the markets.

It is critical that the private sector takes part in bringing innovative solutions that reinforce success and maintain a steady growth for businesses. Kowri seems to appreciate this major problem and is providing free insurance for the merchants that it serves by signing up on their website www.kowri.app. And this insurance protects trader’s inventory to the sum of ¢50,000 in the event of any natural disaster of this magnitude. This insurance will cover natural disasters such as the horrible flood that happened in the Volta region, or other types of damages associated with it such as burglary and stolen goods.

Kowri understands that in the life of businesses a lot can happen and hence, seeks to be present not only in good times when business is booming, but also in the bad times when customers and businesses need support from concerned business partners. Kowri presents good news for Business owners in the markets as they can now benefit from this insurance offer and get restored financially and emotionally after the occurrence of these unfortunate mishaps.

It is very important that the growth of the economy is encouraged through delivering best value to the people and companies in Ghana. And Kowri is doing that with this market business insurance package.

Insurance for market traders should be a very important decision, and having digital platforms like kowri helping you to do this conveniently and easily definitely gives you more than other contemporary financial apps in Ghana, or any other bank in Ghana for that matter.