The nation’s insurance industry is striving to keep pace with trends and development in the global business environment, so that it can continue to remain strong and relevant for its teaming customers now and in the future.
Market demands, such as improving customer service, digitalization for convince and also product innovations, as well as cyber security are being looked into, to ensure growth sustainability and relevance of the business to its customers.
Meanwhile, Leadway Assurance, a leader in the industry is championing capacity building to ensure that those who take the responsibility to educate the public are also properly informed.
This lead to the Company’s sustenance of its Annual Media Training for Insurance Journalist, which 2021 edition held last week virtually with key media professionals in attendance.
Experts at Leadway Assurance during the training session noted that insurance companies that want to remain relevant in the nearest future must consciously create digital channels that are customer friendly and make the customer happy.
Speaking on the topic “Insurance For The Future In 2021” Akinyemi Alebiosu, principal, Investment and Strategy, Leadway Assurance Limited, said that underwriting in the future is going to be driven by data.
According to him, if companies have proper data, they can predict incidents of loss and properly price it.
Alebiosu said: “Data is the new oil, and underwriting in the future is going to be driven by data and analytics. We are getting to a point where we will be using historical records, using robotics, artificial intelligence in making decisions of pricing, type and extent of risks we take.
“Insurance companies of the future will seek to collect large pools of data, analyse it, try to make meaning of it, prepare or create predictive models, at the end of the day make decisions that will make the product better. For example, in analysing the data, I want to know the pain point of our customers, what is their biggest concern, how am I able to create products that meet these needs at the lowest cost because if I have a proper data I can predict incidents of loss and properly price it and also know what their price point is. So at the end of the day if we use data and analytics correctly in our underwriting process, the customer will be happy, the underwriter will be happy and all the stakeholders will benefit from the insurance ecosystem.”
Adetola Adegbayi, executive director, General Business at Leadway Assurance Limited in her remarks implored Nigerians to embrace insurance, stressing that insurance remains a key source of raising fund to carter for risks.
She noted that Leadway Assurance over the years has been providing happiness to the insuring public through prompt payment of claims.
Meanwhile, Leadway Assurance harping on the need to mitigate cyber risks, has called on corporate entities, institutions, religious organizations and individuals to provide necessary measures to protect their database and computer networks from attacks by hackers.
Speaking on “Understanding Cyber Insurance” Uzodinma Ibe, of the Casualty & Liability Underwriting, General Insurance at Leadway said with increased online and internet connectivity becoming part of our day to day business as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, there is need for protection against cyber attacks.
He said a comprehensive report by a United Kingdom (UK) cyber security company, identified that there was high traffic when it comes to information, transactions and data emanating from Nigeria into digital space, adding that the survey noted that 36 per cent of Nigerian organizations suffered cyber attacks in the last twelve months.
Uzodinma also said that 64 per cent of Cyber attacks in Nigeria exploited misconfigurations on the organization servers, pointing out that Nigeria has the highest data Leakage in the world.
On business activities, social networking and governmental activities, he said the report has also identified where Nigeria as a digital hub is and to what extent are their cyber exposures.
In order to avoid cyber attacks on our computer networks, which sometimes resulted into data and financial losses, there is a need for enterprises, individuals, corporate organizations, to see it as a serious business and take up some form of cyber mitigating effort in this regard.
According to him, “Here in Leadway, through our research we have been able to identify a particular area of cyber exposure where corporate entities can find themselves and see how we can do proper risk management and provide specific insurance product that can help them mitigate such exposures through Cyber Risk Management Insurance which in some quarters called Cyber Liability Insurance and in some, Cyber Risk Management Insurance.
“We have been able to highlight that technology, social media and transactions over the internet (cyber platforms) play a key role in how most organizations conduct business and reach out to prospective customers today. These vehicles have gateways – platforms, integrations that cyber attackers often use.
From Leadway point of view, our Cyber Enterprise Risk Management Insurance Policies try to help any organization mitigate risk exposure for a certain cost expenses involved with recovery after a cyber-related security breach or similar event.
On who is being indemnified or who is being provided cover, he explained that Leadway Cyber Insurance provides first-party coverage and third-party liability risk covers against cyber-attacks for organizations.
“First party which is the policyholder, the individual or that corporate entity that buys the insurance, such policy caters for private investigation expenses where there is some form of data compromise or breach to reach out to different customers to inform them of the breach.
“Third-party liability coverage indemnifies companies for losses to others caused, for example, by errors and omissions, failure to safeguard data, or defamation; and other benefits including regular security-audit, post-incident public relations and investigative expenses, and criminal reward funds, he stated.
