The initiative of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) to deepen insurance penetration is expected to create about 250,000 fresh jobs in the insurance sector of the nation’s economy.
Delivering a paper at the just concluded NAICOM 2022 Retreat for Financial Journalists in Uyo, Akwa Ibom, State, at the weekend, the head, Corporate Communications & Market Development of the commission, ‘Rasaq Salami, said, his commission has put in place structures to promote insurance as a tool for stimulating growth of other sectors.
The initiatives, he added, will also raise funds for project development at the federal and state levels, so as to create over 250,000 new jobs.
Salami disclosed that the structures will also deepen insurance penetration, he added that, the initiatives will also improve insurance consumer trust and confidence in the sector, increase insurance contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 0.4 per cent to over 3.0 per cent as well as lower insurance gap from 94 per cent to 70 per cent.
The regulatory initiatives, he noted, are also expected to and increase insurance industry gross premium income (GPI) from N630 billion in 2021 to N6 trillion by 2030.
He added that market development is a costly affair and requires huge capital to keep going, he promised that, NAICOM will continue to work with all stakeholders to develop strategic, sustainable and implementable initiatives for deepening insurance penetration to enable optimal contribution to the Nigerian economy.
“Various actions to expand the reach or tap into a different segment/unexplored market (Retail end) and, other activities aimed at achieving insurance market development, have been put in place.
“They include; Market conduct guideline; bancassurance guideline; Takaful Insurance guideline; Microinsurance guideline; RBS Framework/Own Risk Assessment (ORSA); Nigerian Insurance Industry ICT guideline,” he pointed out.
Promising establishment of Liaison offices with target state government, such as; Lagos, Ekiti, Kano, and others, he added that, implementation mercenaries are already inplace, even as sensitisation of the micro, small and medium enterprises(MSMEs) on insurance products and benefits inherent in their consumption in Kano, Abuja and Lagos will be critical to insurance industry growth.
Licensing & authorisation module of NAICOM Portal which has been completed and deployed; commenced development of the Supervisory Returns Phase of the Portal and launch of the Insurtech accelerator platform – Bimalab Nigeria project on 9th February 2022 in partnership with Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Africa, were all critical to this course.
