Cornerstone Insurance builds resilience as businesses go through hard times
As businesses go through hard times under the current economic difficulties with many recording losses and some others closing shop, underwriting firm, Cornerstone Insurance Plc says it has build resilience to weather the storm.
The resilience, the company said is built on innovation, not only on products but also technology and people.
Ganiyu Musa, group managing director/CEO, Cornerstone Insurance Plc said the company realized the difficulty in the economy, and focused on strategies that would enable it survive at tough times, and also take advantage of opportunities at peak periods.
“Right from the beginning we were focused on innovation as a way to build resilience. So we continued not just on product, we invested on technology and people. We focused on making insurance more accessible not just on the physical structures but also through electronic channels.”
Speaking on the achievements of the company, Musa said with 30 branch network across the three geo- political zones in the country, the company has improved its electronic platforms delivery and has also strengthen its distribution channel.
He said the company focused on strengthening its balance sheet, by acquiring FIN Insurance Company Limited in 2016, adding that this acquisition has placed the Cornerstone brand among the top three insurance companies in the country.
He however commended the efforts of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in widening the frontier of Takaful Insurance, adding that the business line remains one of the most thriving amongst the firm’s catalogue of products.
He expressed optimism that businesses would improve as the government continues to introduce structures and policies to move the economy out of the present recession.
The GMD further stated that the Company will soon unveil a robust mobile insurance product to carter for two critical identified needs of the insuring public, which are death of family members and medical bills illness.
The company hopes to leverage recent efforts made by the industry regulator, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) to reactive mobile insurance which was stalled last year due to regulatory issues.
He said the firm is presently working on growing its agency base, stressing that some agents who were recently recruited are undergoing training and that efforts are in top gear to raise the number of agents to 2500.
Musa, who also spoke on the planned industry capital verification, said the company is fully ready for the exercise. He lauded the initiative, stressing that it would help position operators where to operate, as they would underwrite risks according to their capacity.
Cornerstone was doing well in mobile insurance before an embargo was placed on partnership with telecoms. Before then, 4.7 million mobile phone subscribers attempted to register with the firm, while 2.7 million actually registered and 1.3 million had cover in 18 months, the company hinted.
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