By BusinessNews Staff
on November 24, 2015
The
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has restated that about 39.5 million Nigerians
were totally excluded from the financial services system. These include
insurance services, pension and banking services.
The bank
said greater numbers of persons were excluded from insurance and pension
services.
A
representative of CBN at the micro insurance fair recently held in Lagos, Mr.
Olayinka Peters from the Financial Inclusion Secretariat of the apex bank
stated this while addressing exhibitors and visitors at the fair.
He
attributed Nigerian’s apathy to insurance in particular to lack of trust and
financial education, adding that the above two problems must be addressed by
the insurers in collaboration with the apex bank.
Peters
said to help the apex bank wade into the problem; insurance industry must
provide quality data on insurance activities.
According
to him, CBN annually publishes data on banking, insurance and pension but that
there has not been any quality data raised by insurance industry.
He said
data on insurance often provided by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM),
is of poor quality pointing out that it lacked information on number of women,
number of men and children that have insurance cover.
Furthermore,
he said the available insurance data provided by the commission lacked sector
by sector insurance activities such as agric sector insurance.
He called
on the commission and umbrella body of insurance underwriters, the Nigeria
Insurers Association to avail the apex bank with quality data that will enable
it give adequate attention to insurance and come up with strategy on how to
improve on the performance of the sector which after its century of operation
in Nigeria contributes below one percent to the National GDP.
He
promised that the financial inclusion strategy secretariat to which the NIA is
a stake holder would publish every quality data released by the insurance
industry.
Speaking,
the Director General of NIA, Mr. Sunday Thomas said the association considers
the fair very important because looking at the structure of Nigerian
population, there is need to deepen Insurance penetration further to make
Nigeria occupy higher position in African insurance market .
He said
in terms of market volume, Nigeria occupies 4th position, filing behind
South Africa, Morocco and Egypt.
Thomas
said through the fair, NIA wants to leverage on the population of the country
to increase insurance penetration and earn more premium for the industry.
According to him, NIA in hosting the fair, considered the fact that majority of Nigeria’s population falls within the low income group and these have for years been excluded from insurance service delivery.
According to him, NIA in hosting the fair, considered the fact that majority of Nigeria’s population falls within the low income group and these have for years been excluded from insurance service delivery.
He said
against this backdrop, member companies of NIA have gone into development of
products that will serve this developing retail market.
According
to Thomas, the fair has successfully brought the insurers and insuring public
to a common platform where they can interact with each other on insurance
services available as well as the relevance to them.
Also
speaking at the event, Group Managing Director, Mutual Benefit Assurance, Mr.
Akin Ogunbiyi said insurance is very relevant to Nigerians especially to grass
root dwellers and informal sector operators.
Ogunbiyi
who gave the key note address at the fair listed advantages of insurance to
this segment of Nigerian population as provision of other benefits that cannot
be accessed through other mechanism adding that micro insurance provides
value addition advantage such as risk management advice.
He also
noted that micro insurance services to the informal sector operators provides
them with peace of mind especially in this period of incessant fire out breaks
in various markets in the country since the operators who has micro insurance
cover knows that there is micro insurance cover in place.
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