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Chuks Udo Okonta
The Commissioner for Insurance Sunday Thomas, has said there is no economy that can attain financial stability without insurance.
He said this yesterday, while presenting a paper entitled; ‘Rethinking Insurance as a Critical Economic Growth Strategy’ at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Insurance Group 2023 Insurance Stakeholders’ Consultative Forum in Lagos, stating that insurance is the bedrock that manages the risks inherent in economic activities that guarantee economic growth and that taking risk is correlated with growth.
Thomas noted that slack in economic expansions could be associated with slow growth in the proxies that define insurance activities, such as; Gross Premium Income, Insurance Penetration and Density & Insurance Gap.
He submitted that thinking and rethinking insurance in developmental process enables investors concentrate on commercial aspects of investments whilst relying on the comfort of the cover provided by insurance institutions for pure risks not excluding political risks.
“We must therefore think Insurance when considering the risks of expropriation, currency inconvertibility, terrorism and sabotage, sovereign and sub-foreign obligor risks, protracted defaults and many other risks that could interrupt our businesses and partnerships,” he posited.
The regulator maintained that insurance industry is a pivot to guarantee the sustainability of growth and development of the State and its people, stressing that insurance industry has the potential to be a major driver of advancing national growth and development through freeing government dwindling resources usually deployed to mitigate losses to citizens arising from fundamental risks and catastrophic events.
“I am optimistic that all our players in the Industry will work together, pooling resources, facilitating capital transformation, hedging risks and many others including innovation of tailored policies that meet the needs of the government and the insuring public.Also, as Government Agency,” he opined.
Thomas said NAICOM is determined to complement various policies of the government with various initiatives that would aggressively open up and grow the economy, adding that everybody is to think and rethink insurance as a critical economic growth strategy!
