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Chuks Udo Okonta
For the insurance industry to adequately benefit from artificial intelligence, experts have canvassed the need for a home grown devices that are capable of meeting both local and international needs of policyholders.
This submission was made today at the ongoing 13th annual Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) Chief Information Officer (CIO) 2025 conference in Lagos.
The Chairman Nigerian Insurers Association Information Technology Committee Jackson Ikiebe, speaking on the theme: ‘AI-Driven Transformation in Insurance: Elevating Customers Experience’ said artificial intelligence has come to assist and transform human activities, stating that presently everything is tending towards artificial intelligence and everybody wants to embrace and leverage it to enhance their activities.
He submitted that because there are a lot of benefits that are derived from it, insurance industry can’t run away from it. “We don’t want to stay behind, but stay ahead and adapt things that are relevant to our own environment that would help us to reduce the challenges we are having in terms of our processing time. To respond to our customers, who need better experience of our processes and much more benefits from us, we can’t afford to delay them in achieving their needs,” he posited.
According to him, artificial intelligence would definitely help insurance practitioners to optimize the number of things they are currently doing and also in offerings they are to offer their customers.
“A lot of data come into it and in the process, we can use artificial intelligence to do mining and analytics that align with the data and engender the type of products policyholders really want.
“When artificial intelligence is fully entrenched, we would have a better insurance industry that is responsive to customers needs,” he submitted.
One building a centralized data in the insurance industry, he said the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database (NIID) platform has helped to centralized data in the industry, stressing that the platform has helped the industry to have a handshake with security agencies in enforcing compliance.
He noted the industry has started the process of harmonizing data, adding that the initial challenge of trust which hindered harmonization of data in the past is gradually being tackled.
He appreciated practitioners for attending the event; while calling for more collaboration so as to achieve the industry’s set objectives.
The Vice Chairman Nigerian Insurers Association Information Technology Committee Dimeji Ogundele, called for localization of the industry’s artificial intelligence to suit the available data.
He also canvassed the need for robust collaboration between insurance regulators and practitioners in the deployment and usage of artificial insurance.
Insurance companies were implored to invest more in research and development to create artificial intelligence that would align with their objectives and regulators.
