NAICOM Discloses Industry Contribution Of f N500m During COVID-19 Pandemic
The Commissioner for insurance and Chief Executive Officer of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Sunday Thomas, disclosed that the industry has contributed no less than N500 million and free Life Insurance cover for frontline workers in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the commission’s support to government.
Thomas stated that in terms of its performances, the industry premium income between 2014 and 2022 increased at an average of 13.6 per cent from a premium income of N282 billion to N725.2 billion, noting that total assets of the sector also grew at an average of 12 per cent for the same period from a base of N827.5 billion in 2014 to N2.33 trillion in 2022.
This was disclosed by the commissioner, yesterday in his welcome address at a two-day National Insurance Conference 2023 holding in Abuja. The conference was themed, “Redefining Safety’—Insurance solutions for Public buildings and Buildings under construction.”
Thomas said the government should assist the commission to repeal all the obsolete laws that have made enforcement of insurance building codes ineffective.
According to him, “The commission also provided financial assistance to tertiary institutions in Nigeria to facilitate education of professionals required by the insurance sector, projects in five tertiary institutions have been concluded and some commissioned while seven others are at various stages of completion."
He further noted that notwithstanding the growth that had been sustained, the roadmap enumerated some of the challenges affecting the desired growth of the insurance industry, which had persisted such as, talent gap, comparatively low public awareness, insurance affordability, lack of trust and confidence in insurers, cultural and religious bias, inadequate distribution channels, low enforcement of insurance among others.
“I am pleased to mention that over the next decade (2024-2033) the insurance industry will seek to continue its transformation journey along following strategic thrusts of transforming the regulatory environment to sustain the industry growth, transition to risk-based capital model, promote insurance awareness and adoption, enhancing digitalisation of the industry as well as deepening the industry’s talent pool and capabilities among others," he said.
Delivering a paper, titled: “Redefining Safety: Insurance Solutions for public buildings and buildings under construction,” the Group Chairman, Heirs Holdings, Tony Elumelu, explained that past experiences of building collapse across the country has negatively led to the death of several persons as well as loss of several properties that cannot be recovered because of nation’s poor insurance culture.
He said, “Insurance companies should henceforth contribute at least five per cent of their earnings for awareness campaigns to reduce cases of building collapse in Nigeria. In the last few years, we have recorded several cases of building collapse, last year many precious lives were lost, am calling on stakeholders to put in more efforts with NAICOM to ensure a comprehensive approach to reducing deaths, property loss."
In his suggestion, Elumelu said that as part of efforts to mitigate the challenges of the sector, insurance brokers should henceforth increase their capitalisation funds to N1 billion, adding that all insurance companies should mandatorily contribute at least five per cent of their earnings to support the sector for five years, capital base of life insurance be raised to N20 billion while non-life insurance be raised to N30 billion.