An insurance researcher, Obinna Chilekezie, says it will be one of the wonders of the world if the Nigerian insurance industry can realise N1 trillion gross premium income by 2015.
Chilekezie, principal researcher, Independent Insurance Researcher (IIR), said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.
According to him, this is because it will be difficult to remove insurance patronage from culture and religious beliefs.
“The extended family system and the belief that things must work according to how God designed it have eaten deep into the main fabric of the citizenry.
“Selling insurance to meet the target will be a Herculean task,” he said.
Chilekezie was reacting to the income projected by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in its Market Restructuring and Development Initiatives.
The income target, which is the industry’s business blueprint to put Nigeria among the 20 top economies by 2020, was projected in 2007. The projection was billed to be achieved in 2012, but shifted to 2015.
Chilekezie said that the industry operators would need to explore all the unusual avenues to meet the N1 trillion target but definitely not in the next three years.
