Insurance Sector’s Annual Turnover Hits N726.2bn

Ebere Nwoji

Insurance sector in 2022 posted total annual premium income of N726.2 billion, showing significant growth of 33.9 per cent from the N569.1 billion recorded in 2021.

This represented the total volume of businesses written by all the insurance underwriting companies in the country in 2022.

With this, the insurance sector has made a major leap towards meeting its long walk to trillion-naira market, a target it had set for itself for over a decade now.

The Chairman, Nigeria Insurers’ Association (NIA), Mr. Olusegun Omosehin, disclosed this yesterday, at the Annual General Meeting of the association held in Lagos.

Omosehin, declaring the scorecards of member companies of the association at the meeting said notwithstanding challenges which bedeviled the global economy, Nigeria’s economy, inclusive of insurance companies, continued to discharge their obligations as financial intermediaries and restorers of businesses in line with their mandate.

“It is also worthy of note that as a subset of the National financial system, the insurance industry also had a fair dose of the general economic and socio-political problems bedeviling the country in the past one year.

“Perennial power outages, internecine conflicts between herders and farmers, menace of kidnappers  and bandits , insurgency  in the northeast especially around  the lake chad basin,  poor infrastructural facilities, galloping inflation , rising unemployment, flooding and other natural catastrophes , increasing poverty levels and geometric rise in exchange rate  of the naira to the US dollar  continue to be a major challenge to business resulting in high cost of operation” Omosehin noted.

He said despite these, the association was working closely with the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) and other stake holders within the financial services and technology segments to promote the business of insurance and increase its contributions to the national GDP.

He said the sector had lined up a number of initiatives to achieve its purpose.He said there were expectations that these  initiatives would lead to increase in  insurance penetration and density.

He listed the initiatives as Consolidated Insurance Bill 2020, on which he said the association made spirited efforts to ensure that it was signed into law during the lifetime of the 9th National Assembly but that it was unfortunate it was not achieved.

He said the insurers would review the process that led  them thus far and would take the next steps in the coming months after due consultation with all relevant stake holders.

Other initiatives according to the NIA Chairman included new premium rates for motor insurance, ECOWAS Brown Card scheme in which he said there had been ongoing discussion in the sub-region about the issue of domestication of ECOWAS Brown Card in the Nigerian market.

 “I am delighted to report that this had  finally come to fruition with the increase in premium rates for motor vehicle insurance as contained in NAICOM  circular of December 22,2022 as it is now mandatory that all third-party  policies must be issued with Brown Card Cover”.

According to the NIA Chairman, the Brown Card Cover would serve as a hedge against ECOWAS risks for travelers and businessmen within the ECOWAS sub-region.

Omosehin, listed other initiatives targeted at increasing insurance penetration in the country which the insurers in collaboration with their regulator have embarked on as NIA, Moroccan Insurers’ Technical Agreement, which is partnership deal between the NIA members and Moroccan Federation of Insurance and Reinsurance Companies in exchange of market information.