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Chuks Udo Okonta
The Commissioner for Insurance, Sunday Thomas, has said insurance gives people confidence to venture, knowing that when risk happens they have something to fall back on to rebound.
Thomas stated this recently at a programme organised by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) for business operators in Lagos, adding that insurance is that product you buy when you think you do not need it because it may be too late to buy it when the need for it arises.
He noted that notwithstanding the importance of insurance to lives and property, adoption and penetration have been low in Nigeria owing largely to a lot of challenges principal of which may be the inadequate product offerings that meet the needs of the consumers including the MSMEs.
“Consequently, the MicroInsurance and Takaful are two insurance offerings carefully designed for affordability and inclusiveness to bring Insurance within the reach of one of the nations most valued contributors to the economy-the MSMEs. This will support the sector for speedy recovery when unforeseen situations occur,” he said.
He posited that NAICOM has undertaken to educate and drive enrolment for insurance through the sensitisation workshop, stressing that the workshop has so far made stop ins at three cities in Nigeria; Kano, Kaduna and Abuja pulling MSMEs from these cities and their environs. “At all locations, we received overwhelming responses in terms of attendance, engagement and enrollment. The average attendance per location have been over 1000 MSMEs,” he added.
The NAICOM boss maintained that Lagos state is a key stop for the commission for obvious reasons; first, Lagos has been Nigeria’s nerve center of commerce, the state hosts the single largest number of, MSMEs in the country, put at 11.5 per cent of total. (NBS 2019) and more important, the current and past administrations of the state have demonstrated a continuous commitment to sustaining MSME growth.
“Specifically, the constellation of deliberate polices, special programmes and projects, in collaboration with various agencies to boost capacity, access credit, enable trade are all commendable. Some of the State efforts that readily comes to mind and which have been supportive to the Federal Government efforts are: The Lagos State MSMEs exclusive fairs; the N220 billion Micro and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF) to cushion the impact of COVID 19 and other State intervention programs.
“All of these efforts represent to us both the will and action to engender MSME growth.
“It is with these assurance that we have anticipated and prepared, that we shall record much more significant outcomes here with this workshop.
“The level of vulnerability of MSMEs to extinction by likely disasters – both natural and man-made is very high; we all witnessed the destruction of life and property during the #EndSars protest which may have killed some MSMEs and driven some persons further down the poverty line. The good thing which is our message to you today is that insurance will provide you the shock-absorber to withstand any of these unforeseen calamities when they do occur and help your reinstatement in business,” Thomas submitted.
He noted that NAICOM is committed to its mandate of providing diligent oversight to the insurance sector towards ensuring prompt settlement of genuine claims when insured event occurs.
Thomas maintained that the MSMEs sector is too important to be neglected as it is key to economic development of the nation and thus, must be guided and protected against failure.
He implored the public to contact the 59 insurance companies; 510 insurance brokers, 4 Microinsurance companies and 4 Takaful companies licensed by NAICOM to take the necessary steps in getting themselves, properties and business adequately covered.
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