Enhancing Financial Inclusion and Access (ELFINA) report results from the 2018 survey suggests a number of constraints to be addressed to increase the uptake of insurance products in Nigeria, and top amongst the reasons is the low awareness.

According to the result, 77.2 percent of the respondents say they are not aware of insurance, while 4.9 percent being the second reason said they haven’t thought about insurance yet.

In a report presented by EFINA at the recently concluded Insurance CEO Retreat held in Ibadan, Oyo State, 4.3 percent of respondents said they have nothing to insure, while 3.9 percent said they do not believe in insurance.

Another 2.5 percent each, said they do not know where to go and get it, and they cannot afford to pay for insurance respectively, whereas 2.3 percent said they do not know the benefits of having an insurance policy, while the last 2.5 percent gave no reason for not taking any form of insurance.

The report further stated that like many other sectors, the insurance industry’s projected contribution to financial inclusion for 2020 has fallen below expectation, given that of the projected 40 percent target, only 2 percent was recorded at the end of 2018 leaving a 38 percent gap.

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EFInA therefore considers microinsurance as an essential tool to advance financial inclusion, and notes that 31.2 million adults in Nigeria said they will be interested in using microinsurance.

In furtherance of this, EFInA inaugurated a Microinsurance working group in May 2017 to engender an enabling environment for the expansion of Microinsurance in Nigeria; to build the capacity of regulators and operators; to develop useful Microinsurance products and discuss approaches to deepening the uptake and usage of these products to meet the needs of the low-income populationEnhancing Financial Innovation & Access (EFInA) is a financial sector development agency, funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Set up in late 2007, EFInA’s mission is to make Nigeria’s financial system work better, especially for the poor, by facilitating the emergence of an all-inclusive, growth-promoting financial system. EFInA’s holistic approach to expanding access to financial services for all, especially for low income households is based on the following four pillars:

 

Modestus Anaesoronye

Modestus Anaesoronye is a leading Nigerian financial journalist with over two decades of experience reporting on the insurance and pension sectors across Nigeria and West Africa. He has held key editorial positions at major national media outlets, including The Comet, The Nation, and Financial Standard, and currently serves as a Senior Financial Analyst at BusinessDay Media Ltd. A widely travelled reporter, he has covered industry developments in more than 14 countries across Africa and Asia. Anaesoronye is a multiple award-winning journalist, honoured several times as Insurance Journalist of the Year and Pension Journalist of the Year by recognised industry bodies, including PensionScope and the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), among others.

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