3mn Nigerians have insurance cover, NAICOM
By Patience Ikpeme
The National Insurance Commission ( NAICOM) has disclosed that about three million Nigerians had insurance policies at the end of 2022.
Also insurance companies have being urged to promptly pay claims to policy owners, and invest in creating advertisment for proper awareness.
This was disclosed at a retreat in Akwa Ibom, by Dr Usman Jankara, Assistant Director of Corporate Strategy and Special Duties NAICOM.
Dr Usman Jankara said “considering Nigeria’s population is about 200 million, the number of those insured stood at three million by the end of last year when this figure was given.
He also said “from 2015 till date, when you look at Gross Premium Income of the industry, we were at N282 billion in 2015, and today it’s at N736 billion , representing average growth of 15%”.
Dr Usman also said that “as of 2015, asset grew from N917 billion to N2.32 trillion in 2022, an exceptional growth of about 60%”.
He pointed out that there has been no economy that has grown 15% within ten years. “None of the other sub-sectors recorded that much growth, and that means the insurance industry can still do better he said.
Jankara revealed that Nigeria’s “insurance penetration rate, that is insurance to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 0.4%, and the insurance density, that is how many Nigerians are insured is 1.5%.
“Life insurance grew from N86 billion in 2015 to N309.1 billion in 2022. Non-life insurance grew from N198.3 billion in 2015 to N417.3 billion in 2022” He added .
Mr Sunday Thomas, the Commissioner for Insurance, said he hoped the National Assembly will pass the re-introduced 2020 consolidated insurance Bill.
“Though we are not going to start again from the beginning, the National Assembly is now looking at it. The bill has now gone through the first reading and we are following up to see that it is concluded as soon as possible” He said.
Mr Sunday Thomas also stated that the insurance industry strongly believed the last administration was going to conclude on the bill, but it didn’t happen.
He gave the assurance that all hope wasn’t lost, giving that the bill is a game changer because of what is contained in it and it’s importance to the sector.
