MD, Anchor Insurance, Mr. Mayowa Adeduro
By Nnamdi Duru
While insurers across Africa intensify effort on evolving alternative ways to deepen insurance penetration and make insurance more relevant to the needs of the low income earners, Anchor Insurance Company Limited operators in the country has taken up the challenge of providing specialised trainings on agricultural insurance and micro-insurance for stakeholders.
The training was part of the programmes lined up for the Brokers and Customers’ forum hosted by the company in Lagos recently.
The Managing Director of the company, Mr. Mayowa Adeduro, said his organisation tried to challenge the big operators at their point of weakness with the programme.
Adeduro said “the forum is unique because it is not just for insurance brokers but it is also for the insureds and it is a platform for both insureds to interact with the insurer and state their fears and observations about insurance freely.”
He said his organisation has also engaged a consultant for the World Bank to help train Nigerian insurance brokers and other stakeholders on these new but critical areas of insurance business.
“In view of the emerging global trend in deepening insurance penetration in all sectors, we have scheduled this year’s event to feature among other things a lecture titled, Agriculture and Micro-Insurance: A New Vista for Deepening Insurance Penetration in Sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.
Underscoring the need for the programme, Adeduro said most low income earners have many problems giving them sleepless nights, which insurance companies are capable of solving including how to pay their house rent, school fees, how to handle kidnap and ransom, as well as domestic and road accidents, etc.
He also noted that country was still depended on agriculture, which according to him catered for the needs of up to 95 per cent of Nigerians. “We will dwell on how micro-insurance and agricultural insurance would help the country,” he stressed.
The shift in focus to the retail and micro-insurance by the insurance operators became necessary since the concentration on the traditional big ticket government and corporate businesses could not guarantee them the desired returns in terms of meeting the needs of the insuring public and profitability.
The renewed interest of the company in agricultural insurance and micro-insurance stemmed from the fact that insurers have not been attending to the needs of most Africans, adding that the operators need to invest in retail insurance as against focusing on big ticket businesses that offer little in terms of profit.
According to Adeduro, Anchor Insurance wants to introduce things that would excite its customers and the masses in general in its bid to live up to its vision and mission statement.