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Chuks Udo Okonta
Most non-marketing staff of insurance companies lack underwriting knowledge, hence can’t effectively sell insurance policies, investigations have revealed.
Investigations conducted by Inspenonline revealed that most employees, aside those in sales and marketing lack basic knowledge on insurance products offered by their companies.
An interaction with employees that work in account department and corporate communications revealed how swallow they understand the products offered by their companies.
To address this challenge, one of the leading insurance company told this medium that the management has resolved to be conducting quarterly trainings across all departments to align the employees with its products offerings.
According to a marketer, this dearth of knowledge also manifested recently, when a Managing Director of an insurance company only got to know about deferred annuity product three years to his retirement.
An expert also told this medium that the over reliance on brokers and agents have made many companies complacent in developing marketing skills amongst non-marketing staff.
Available data also showed that insurance companies are only generated 3.2 per cent which amounts to N32 billion of industry total N1 trillion revenue, from direct saves, a development which also point to the failure to promote sales through all available resources.
The Managing Director Peerless Management & Solutions Limited and former Director, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) Agboola Pius, in a paper entitled: ‘Enhancing Insurance Penetration In Nigeria: The Pivotal Role of insurance Brokers’ delivered at the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers Lagos Area Committee (NCRIB-LAC) 2024 Midyear Workshop in Lagos, noted that buck of insurance premium is generated by brokers.
According to him, insurance brokers generate 68.32 per cent of the insurance industry income, agents contribute 21.65 per cent and bancassurance six per cent.
He noted that without insurance brokers, the underwriting sector would be in trouble, adding that brokers play key role in insurance distribution.
