Nigerians urged to embrace insurance, pension as safety net

More than ever before, if you are serious about your life, if you want to live a meaningful life, you need to plan for yourself and that is why both insurance and pension is something we should all embrace as Nigerians,” Folashade Onanuga, former director-general, Lagos State Pension Commission (LASPEC), has said.

Onanuga said this while delivering the theme paper “Covid-19 Impact On Financial Inclusion: Opportunities For Insurance & Pension Sectors” at the sixth edition of the national conference of the National Association of Insurance and Pension Correspondent held recently in Lagos.

While emphasizing the need for Nigerians to embrace insurance and pension, she also tasked insurance and pension operators to be deliberately creative and innovative in their product development and services delivery, by ensuring that they focus on meeting the needs of the people, adding that “people will embrace the products and services that meet their need. The critical thing is meeting the need.”

According to her, unfortunately, the social security system in Nigeria is next to zero; so you need to plan for yourself so that if anything happens, you need to be able to stand.

She said in this era of COVID-19 pandemic, insurance and pension is what Nigerians need to lean on for a hopeful future.

“The World Bank estimates that the covid-19 crisis will result in 10.9 million Nigerians falling into poverty by January 2022. If we have learned anything, the pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis have highlighted the critical need for a functioning social security system to allow all Nigerians to achieve an adequate standard of living,

“If you really want to remain in business, you must take insurance, in the event of sudden occurrence like the pandemic, insurance will help you to stand back on your feet; in the event of you finding that because of the pandemic a breadwinner of a family dies, there must be a buffer to ensure that the family is not affected.

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“Therefore, more than ever before, you find out that actually there is need for both insurance and pension products to ensure that we continue to live and meet our need of sustainable living, healthy living, wealthy living and of course, continuity in business. That is why it is important for all of us to identify that we have these needs for growth and continuity by taking up both insurance and pension products,” Mrs. Onanuga said.

In her goodwill message, Aisha Dahir-Umar, director general, National Pension Commission (PenCom), who was represented at the event by the Commission’s head, Corporate Communications, Peter Aghahowa, emphasized the need for Nigerians to embrace contributory pension, as a social security safety net.

He said the issue of gathering retirees physically in various locations across the country for verification is now a thing of the past with the online verification and enrolment portal recently launched by the Commission.

According to him, “Before now, we would congregate several retirees in different centres of the country to do the enrolment for the Treasury Funded retirees, and now that can be done online.

“I’m happy to announce that over 3,000 people have been enrolled through our online portal out of 11,000 expected to retire this year.

Also speaking, the representative of the commissioner for insurance and chief executive officer, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Olorundare Sunday Thomas, assistant director, Market Development, Adeyemi Abubakar, called on Nigerians in all walks of life to embrace insurance as risk-mitigating mechanism.

While congratulating the NAIPCO members, for their consistency in organizing the conference, as a platform to ensure that they reach out to the public with their reportage on the insurance sector to ensure the growth of the insurance business in Nigeria.

The Commissioner for Insurance reminded NAIPCO of their role as purveyors of information, awareness creation and catalysts of economic growth, just as he solicited the continued cooperation of the Association for the growth of the industry.

He said for the Nigerian insurance market to record significant growth and contributes adequately to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), all hands must be on deck, noting that the media has a critical role to play in this especially in sensitizing the public on the benefits of insurance.

Thomas believes that deepening insurance penetration can only be possible through a deliberate and sustained insurance awareness which, he said, will also lead to the realization of the Federal Government’s financial inclusion initiative.