Insurers see opportunity in emerging economy, consider new products

The nation’s insurance industry would need to develop new products and packages to take advantage of emerging opportunities that would follow the country’s transformation project.

This is obvious, given the that fact that a lot of investment is going into power and infrastructure which would require effective risk management for adequate protection.

These were contained in communiqué issued at the end of the 2013 Education Conference of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN) held in Lagos with the theme “The Nation in Transformation: Repositioning the Insurance Industry.”

The participants acknowledged that the ongoing National Transformation process engenders far-reaching implications for the insurance sector, especially in the area of gaping business opportunities and the need to design policy packages which can take care of the emerging risk exposures.

According to the communiqué, CIIN should explore platforms for bringing the insurance professionals in governance into the fold with a view to tapping from their exposures in the resolution of some key issues burdening the business and practice.

Besides, it noted that the insurance industry is facing serious challenges from the less than optimal financial literacy in the country and therefore should put the necessary machinery in place for up-scaling its ongoing awareness creation.

“That modern Insurance is highly technology-driven, necessitating the need for insurance institutions to deploy cutting-edge technology in order to square up with the growing trends engendered by the National Transformation Process across all sectors of the economy.”

Other high points of the communiqué includes that the Insurance Industry should promote fruitful partnership with other relevant bodies and agencies in order to create beneficial synergies in business promotion.

“That the insurance industry should take a sterner look at the issue of corporate and individual practitioners’ market discipline by putting in place a disciplinary system that is compatible.

“That operators should take their human capital development more seriously, with a view to entrenching an enduring succession plan.”

“That the Industry should be in the vanguard of promoting medium and small scale enterprises in line with the transformation agenda of the Federal Government.”