NAICOM Eyes N1.5tn Insurance Sector Premium
Ebere Nwoji
The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has said it will embark on a market development drive that will enable it achieve N1.5 trillion annual premium income for the insurance sector.
In addition, the industry regulator said it is targeting a 10 per cent insurance penetration as well as 10 per cent insurance density by 2023.
Presently, the industry’s annual premium is N520 billion, with penetration less than one per cent while insurance density is less than three per cent.
Irked by the poor performance of the sector, the Commission had before now launched a medium term market development plan tagged: ‘Market Development and Restructuring Initiative,’ (MDRI) whose objective was to transform the industry from N200 billion premium income to a N1 trillion market by 2009.
The initiative was also targeted at creating 50,000 jobs through the insurance agency system, fight against fake insurance institutions and enforce compulsory insurance.
Though the Commission has not been able to achieve the N1 trillion annual premium income margin, the initiative has brought about a lot of positive changes to the industry, prompting NAICOM to propose to launch second phase of the initiative.
Speaking at the 2021 media retreat organised by the Commission for journalists in Lagos, NAICOM’s Head, Corporate Communications and Market Development, Salami Rasaaq, recalled that when the regulator launched the market development medium term plan in 2009, the target was to grow the approximately 800,000 number of insured Nigerians as at that time to 24 million by 2016, and to further grow the number to 42 million by 2020, while achieving N1 trillion Gross Written Premium.
He said currently, NAICOM has grown the number of individuals with insurance policies to 1,034,383; corporate organisation insured by the industry at present stands at 891,128.
This brings the total number of both corporate and individuals with insurance cover to 1,925,511
He said insurance penetration as at December 2020, stood at 0.72 per cent while Gross Premium Written stood at N520 billion.
At the media retreat with the theme: “National Insurance Commission Corporate Strategic Plan 2020 to 2023: Goals, Objectives and Key deliverables,” Salami, presented a paper titled: “Market Development Drives of the Commission, Actions and Prospects.”
He said the commission had planned to launch the second phase of the market drive and development initiative with the aim of raising the industry’s premium from the current level of N520 billion Gross Written premium to N1.5 trillion Gross Written Premium as well as to increase insurance density to 10 per cent.
He said to achieve the above target, the commission had set four strategic themes which centered on increased insurance awareness and education, stakeholders’ grooming/partnership, high impact media productions and social/ digital transformation of the Commission.
Under its awareness and education theme, Salami, said the Commission was targeting partnerships with government at all levels, including the small, medium businesses’ regulatory agency.
He said through the partnership, the Commission and the industry players would be able to promote micro insurance and Takaful insurance while enforcing compulsory insurances across the country.
He said partnership with joint stakeholders would see the commission launch joint implementation programme with Police, FRSC, Ministry of Justice, including mobile courts, MDAs at all levels.
He said it would also see the Commission launch insurance stakeholders’ forum and town hall meetings, insurance industry thought leadership series and build massive media campaign around such activities.
He said under its high impact media productions, the Commission intends to launch a multi-media production/ campaign using both new media and traditional media, massive production and translations in local languages and deploy the media usage across the country.
