ByDavid Akinmola
The Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) has stressed the need for continuous insurance awareness creation to eliminate the prevailing negative perception about insurance in the country.
This was revealed by the Director General (DG) (NIA), Mrs. Bola Odukale, at a meeting held with the executive members of the Nigerian Association of Insurance and Pension Editors (NAIPE) in Lagos.
Odukale said that insurance practitioners must always put themselves in the face of the people through collaboration with the media.
According to her, “Image making is part of the business of insurance, especially for an industry like ours that everybody claims much of the time that they don’t know much about. We keep hearing things like ‘we don’t know anything about insurance,’ and the feedback is always like everybody seems to lack knowledge of insurance in its entirety.
Everybody seems to be in the dark about insurance or what insurance is all about, and this has been a recurrent decimal as far as the trajectory of the industry is concerned.
“So what that says to me is that there must be continuous engagement, we must continuously put ourselves in the face of the people. Nobody will say they don’t know what the banks do. A lot of people don’t claim the kind of ignorance about the banking sector that they claim about the insurance sector.
“Hence, the fact remains that the media is part of us and the image maker of the industry. Collectively, as an industry, you remain the image maker of our industry. You are a vital part of us as far as this industry is concerned, hence, matters with you cannot be taken with levity, and I want to assure you that we are going to be working together.”
She added, “What that means is that we still have a lot of work to do, and we must continuously ensure that we do the right thing, continuously projecting our industry out there and in a very bright light. I am saying that to reemphasize the fact that you are key to us, and we are also willing to work together with you.”
While speaking on the third-party motor insurance awareness campaign, Odukale said: “The third-party awareness is going to be sustained for the long haul because this is not about third party but about insurance. We are bringing insurance awareness closer to the people, even though we are focusing on third parties. It is still talking about insurance, letting people know that there is something called insurance. So, it is not a conversation that we are just going to end in February; it is something we intend to push further and further.
“Talking about this third party has shown that a lot of awareness creation is required. So we will work with you over the long haul so that we sustain the tempo.”
She, however, appealed to insurance journalists to collaborate with the industry to project the sector in a positive light and protect the industry.
“A lot of us have prospered from this industry, so it behooves us to protect the industry in terms of our reporting. When we are doing our balanced reporting, we should ask ourselves, ‘What is the result? So, at the end of the day, if anybody reads anything about the industry, how does it settle in the person’s mind? Does it make the person have a better perspective of this industry?”
Speaking also at the meeting, the Chairperson of NAIPE, Mrs. Nkechi Naeche-Esezobor, charged insurance operators to carry out regular briefings with the media to keep the journalists abreast with developments in the industry.
She said: “The NIA can collaborate with the media on awareness creation through quarterly briefings on developments in the sector. Through the quarterly briefings, the media will be aware of developments in the sector and adequately push out the message to the public.”
NAIPE Chairperson also advocated for regular articles on insurance to be published by insurance journalists on their various platforms to spread the message of insurance.
