Insurance

Thomas spots headwinds to insurance growth

Vice President, The Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers, Mrs. Ekeoma Ezeibe; President, Rotimi Edu, mni; Alara of Ilara Kingdom, Epe, Lagos, HRM Oba Olukayode Ogunsanwo; Commissioner for Insurance, Sunday Thomas; NCRIB Past President, Prince (Dr) Feyisayo Soyewo, mfr and Deputy President, Tunde Oguntade at the 2022 NCRIB Chief Executive Officers Retreat held in Epe, Lagos.

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Chuks Udo Okonta

The Commissioner for Insurance, Sunday Thomas has called for concerted efforts towards addressing fundamental impact of unsustainable trends that could create significant pressures on the Nigerian Insurance industry’s profitability.

Thomas, who said this at the 2022 Chief Executive Officers’ Retreat of the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers, (NCRIB), held in Epe, Lagos, emphasized that the insurance industry as a business was not outside of the same pressures as businesses in other industry.

According to him, inadequate brokerage services to policyholders, poor claims handling service, price based competition among players, technology adverse and inadequate inclusiveness via insurtech were few of the highlighted trends that could adversely affect the Industry’s profitability.

Among the highlighted trends by the Commissioner for Insurance include, lack of innovative products that meet customer’s needs, concentration of operations in few locations, focus on big ticket businesses like Oil and Gas, Aviation, poor risk governance and poor distribution channels and skill.

For the Nigerian insurance industry, Mr. Thomas noted that the way forward was a move towards changing the narrative and embracing transparency, engagement of all stakeholders, better innovative products, new sources of revenue, improved claims service, use of technology for inclusive insurance, diversification of business base and improved governance. Also speaking at the Retreat, the President of the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers, Rotimi Edu, mni, urged stakeholders in the insurance broking firms to be heedful of practices that would entrench business sustainability for the future of the Nigerian Insurance Industry
Mr. Edu said, ‘as an arm of the insurance sector, our collective resolve to ensure business sustainability and collective growth and development with other arms of the industry will determine how far we can all go in achieving industry wide stability’.

“In line with my thrust of office, we will continue to engage relevant professional bodies for the benefit of members. Our commitment to ensuring that the Insurance Broking profession becomes a house hold name is top priority on the agenda of this administration.

“This is to ensure that we open more vistas of business opportunities and relevance for our members and our noble profession within the Country. I like to put on record that in our continuous desire to engage other relevant professional bodies to the advantage of our Members, the Council will soon be paying courtesy visit to Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), among many other professional bodies penciled for courtesy visits.

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