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Chuks Udo Okonta
Enterprise Life Assurance Company Limited, one of the youngest and foremost underwriting firms in the country has evolved inflation protector scheme to safeguard policyholders’ funds from been wiped out by the ever increasing inflation.
Its Managing Director, Funmilayo Omo, said this in an interview with Inspenonline at the sideline of the just concluded 48th annual conference of the African Insurance Organisation (AIO) in Nairobi, Kenya.
She noted that the firm having considered the impact of inflation on long term funds, designed the product to protect policyholders’ funds.
“One of the products we have designed is called an inflation protector. Once you sign up and you tick the inflation protector, you also tick how you want the inflation protector to apply from 10 per cent to 30 per cent. What that means, is that at the end of every year both your sum assured and the premium, basically increases by the percentage that you have chosen. The idea is to be able to guide against inflation.
“For instance if you have a double digit of inflation at 17 per cent or 15.6 per cent and you apply for inflation protector whatever percentage you have indicated is the percentage your sum assured will be made available,” she submitted.
She maintained that the company designed products in a manner that is simplified and easy to understand, adding that the firm has also taken the advantage that it started operations at a time when technology is a big enabler for businesses in distribution of products.
She said the firm’s distribution process is digitalised, though, it still make use of its well trained sales representatives in driving knowledge and understanding of its esteemed products, which are tailored to meet the needs of the society and each individual.
She said the claims pay out by the firm has been very marginal. “In the past one year our claims has not been exponential. Our claims has been manageable, it is a unique value proposition for us. We aimed to settle claims within 24 hours of documentation and we have tried to keep it so. We believe that part of the challenges we are experiencing in the country, especially with that of insurance is lack of trust. The only way which we can earn this trust is to make sure, we fulfill our obligations as soon as we can and that we are committed to in Enterprise Life,” she posited.
The Enterprise Assurance boss, submitted that the need for data was one of her take away from the AIO conference, stressing that, “How we can use data to drive our business and how data can transform the landscape completely is a major lesson I learnt in the conference.”
According to her, data is needed for underwriting, for rating, even claims settlement and in driving adoption and everything that has to do with insurance.
On climate change, which was a major focus at the conference, she said the earlier the insurance industry begins to understand it and the impact on its business and how operators can support all the initiatives around climate change the better, adding that climate change is a major risk that all stakeholders in the insurance value chain need to appreciate and begin to work to mitigate.
