'INSURANCE SECTOR NOT READY FOR CELEBRITY INSURANCE'

Celebrity insurance has not taken off in the Nigerian insurance market because the entertainment sector is still developing in the country.

Managing Director of FBN Life Assurance, Mr. Val Ojumah, who made the assertion, noted that such a policy is yet to be designed by insurers because there are still very few people in the whole of the entertainment sector compared to a larger population of the country.

Ojumah said 'If you look at the number of people that you can call celebrities, they are still very few in number and insurance works by large numbers where funds can be pooled.'

He said his company might consider such business in the future adding 'We at FBN Life are not there yet. We will consider it in the future but at the moment not yet. We shouldn't be spending our resources on a few people when there are many more people.'

According to Ojumah 'One of our calling in coming into this business is to increase penetration. You cannot increase penetration by talking about celebrities because they are such a few when you compare that to the larger population. So, yes we will get there in the future but at the moment the answer is no.'

Insurance operators choose not to report unethical practices - NIA

Indiscipline and unethical practices have been thriving in the insurance sector because the operators choose not to report offenders to the appropriate bodies.

Chairman of Nigerian Insurers Association, NIA, Mr. Olusola Ladipo-Ajayi, who said this in Lagos recently noted that operators will choose to complain rather than report defaulters of laid down rules and regulations in the insurance sector.

Ladipo-Ajayi said 'The most difficult thing in this industry is that we know ourselves too much. Everybody complains but nobody is reporting.'

The NIA Chairman said that such attitude is not helping because it is difficult for the NIA to monitor everybody. He said 'We are not policemen in NIA secretariat, we are ordinary administrators and insurance people.