The Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) has called on the underwriting firms in the country to invest more in technology tools in marketing and swift claim processing as this would accelerate insurance acceptance among Nigerians.
Speaking at the Insurance Meets Tech (IMT 2.0) conference with the theme: ‘Unlocking Policy and Tech Bottleneck Hindering Disruptive Insurance Penetration,’ the President, NIA, Olusegun Omosehin, said despite the current challenges of inflation and inadequate infrastructure in the country, insurers are embracing technology to drive growth.
With this, he said insurance companies are aiming to achieve over N1 trillion in gross premiums before the end of 2023 by leveraging technology to drive insurance product adoption and acceptability in the country.
According to him, with a resolve to push insurance penetration beyond its current level of less than 1 per cent, the insurers want to surpass last year’s record of N726.2 billion gross premium, insurers are also working with the industry regulators to drive insurance awareness.
Omosehin said in this era defined by rising technology advancements and digital disruptions, the insurance industry in the past years has remained resilient and strong despite the economic headwinds that are challenging our nation, we reaffirm our commitment to drive innovation for economic growth and to secure the future of our businesses, and national assets.”
However, during a panel session at the event to identify why insurance penetration in Nigeria is still less than one per cent despite the efforts being put in place over the years to drive adoption, Client Technology Lead at Microsoft, Wole Odeleye, said one key thing that is missing in the insurance industry is embeddedness.
Odeleye said insurance services need to be embedded into banking services, which have already been embraced by Nigerians to get wider acceptance.
He noted that this strategy was what led to the success of fintechs in Nigeria as they embedded their services into the financial system and latched onto what Nigerians love to do.
“Most insurance organisations in the last four years have come a long way in terms of building technology platforms to facilitate the adoption of insurance. There has been quite a lot of work around customer experience. It’s not perfect, but there has been an improvement in that area.
There has been a lot of increased focus on collaborations. But there’s still a long way to go. And that is because the insurance industry has not been fully embedded into the heart of financial services.
Until that is done, insurance services may not scale in Nigeria. The fintechs started by embedding their products into the financial services and that is why they can scale. They started as an extension of the existing financial services,” Odeleye said.
In his welcome address, the Convener of the Insurance Meet Tech event, Mr Odion Aleobua, said the burgeoning success of insurance companies with substantial millions of dollars in investment underscores the importance of embracing technology and innovation to shape the future of insurance in Nigeria.
While noting that the N726.2 billion gross premium recorded by the insurance industry last year was impressive, he said a look at the gross earnings of Zenith Bank alone for the same year, which stood at N945.5 billion would show that the Nigerian insurance industry has yet to scratch the surface.
