Management of KBL Insurance Limited says an industry-wide national insurance inclusion initiative will enhance market penetration and growth of the industry.
According to the company, several factors have been responsible for low penetration in Nigeria, but noting that group effort by all arms of the industry like what the banking industry did would lower the hurdles.
Ukachi Orji, managing director/CEO, KBL Insurance speaking on the side-line of the company’s Quarterly Performance Review (QPR) called for the establishment of a national insurance inclusion policy initiative, which will focus on repositioning insurance as a viable tool for economic growth and development.
She said the initiative would be an all-stakeholders commitment to accelerate the access of the uninsured communities to affordable mainstream insurance subscriptions, particularly for the compulsory products with managed premium payment strategy.
She cited the Central Bank of Nigeria and the National Financial Inclusion Governance Committee in the Banks, which a few years back focused on accelerating financial inclusion in the country for growth of the industry, which today has continued to yield rewards for the Banks.
“Such an initiative, which has continued to assume increasing recognition globally, can also be adapted in the insurance industry which I think every stakeholder would have something to be happy about”, Orji opined.
Orji thought performance could be better if necessary efforts were made to raise public awareness about the importance of insurance in society and its role in the nation’s economy and its sustainability.
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Charles Ajawuihe, executive director, Business Development and Technical, KBL Insurance Limited, added that the lack of commitment and low budgeting for serious public awareness initiatives and advertising by practitioners are major causes of the low penetration of insurance.
“The economic downturn, religious beliefs and poor policy implementation by respective regulatory drivers are some of the other issues”.
In the 2022 financial year, the volume of business written by member companies of the Nigeria Insurers Association (NIA) grew to about N726.2 billion, which was estimated to be an increase of 33.9 per cent, over premium income of N569.1 billion recorded.
KBL Insurance Limited is said to be embarking on some internal initiatives towards improving the fortunes of insurance in Nigeria. The firm recently launched a new Enterprise Resource Planning software, called IES-Online Application.
IES Online is a digital application that comes with various modules structured to help transform manual operation and processes of various aspects of the entire insurance underwriting, claims settlement, delivery certificates, delivery discharge vouchers (DVs) and insurance policy documentation to customers with speed and in record time, as never been seen in the insurance business in Nigeria.
