For the insurance industry to contribute its quota to the economy, there is a need for insurers to make prompt claim payment a habit.
This was the position of individuals who spoke to The Guardian at the weekend. They said the insurance industry is the least patronised among financial service providers.
The low penetration in the country is a serious cause for concern to industry stakeholders over the years. Hence, insurance subscribers have charged underwriting firms to honour their claim obligation as failure will continue to have negative impacts on the sector’s performance.
To them, the best form of publicity is in paying claims as and when due.
There are also complaints about the terms and conditions that are not adequately spelled out at the point of buying a policy but only become a controversy at the point of claim payment.
Blessing Akintoye, who also spoke to The Guardian, urged insurance companies in the country to consistently pay claims if they wanted people to adopt insurance culture.
Insurance operators, according to her, must explain the terms and conditions of each policy to policyholders at the point of buying the cover to avoid conflicts.
Meanwhile, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of FBN Insurance Limited, Val Ojumah, told The Guardian that FBN Insurance Limited has paid N11.4 billion claims to its policyholders in the last nine months.
Data released by the insurer showed that the N11.4 billion insurance compensation was paid between January and September 2021. This represents a 39 per cent increase when compared to N8.2 billion paid in the same period in 2020.
A further breakdown of the data showed that individual life insurance had the highest figure totalling N5.3 billion while annuity accounted for N3.5 billion.
Other figures released showed N1.9 billion was paid for group life insurance and N687 million for credit life insurance.
“Ours is a business of trust and our strategy remains to provide financial security to our clients. We are keen to attain uncontested leadership status in the life insurance sub-sector as well as aggressively exceed our customers and shareholders’ expectations by paying their claims as and when due,” Ojumah stated.
The Managing Director, Tangerine General Insurance Limited, Mayowa Adeduro, has also charged the citizenry to embrace insurance, describing it as key to surviving unforeseeable risks.
“When there is a disaster, the government can only pay you a token. But with insurance, you will get near or exactly what you have lost. Everybody needs it because of the daily risk we are exposed to.
“One of the cheapest things you can buy is insurance. For instance, you can ensure an N10 million house with an N25, 000 premium. Most policyholders do not know that the fire insurance policy they have covers flood or wind. All these need to be explained to policyholders by marketers to ensure that customers maximise their cover,” he said.
