Ebere Nwoji
The insurance sector made a total premium of N1.003 trillion in the last quarter of 2023, the sector regulator, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), announced yesterday.
In a statement made available to the media, the commission, in its: ‘‘Market Performance At A Glance-Q4 -2023” released by the Statistics Department Directorate of Research, Statistics and Publications’ said the Insurance industry in Nigeria had sustained its progressive trend of positive market performance at the close of 2023 fourth quarter.
“ It recorded a milestone growth to close at N1.003trillion, representing about 27 per cent growth compared to the N790 billion recorded in 2022,” it stated.
The commission gave a breakdown of how the premium was generated, saying the non-life business accounted for 61.3 per cent of all premiums written during the year while the life segment contributed 38.7 per cent, valued at N388.1billion.
The statement further said the market also recorded a retention of about 87.7 per cent for the life business, just about 54 per cent for non-life while the aggregate market average retention stood at 66.7 per cent during the same period.
According to NAICOM, major growth drivers in the non-life segment of the market were oil & gas and fire insurances, which contributed 27.3 per cent and 24.1 per cent respectively. Motor insurance contributed N114.8billion, general accident generated N59.1 billion with marine at N69.1 billion .
Net motor insurance premium stood at N100.3 billion, fire N75.3 billion, general accident 39.0 billion marine 33.5 while oil and gas stood at N54.6 billion.
In terms of market performance percentages, motor insurance polled 66.5 per cent, fire polled 46.9 per cent, General Accident 6.7 per cent, marine 30.9 per cent oil and gas 25.5 per cent.
Talking in terms of claims settlement for the period, the commission said: “The life business recorded about 95 per cent of net claims to the total recorded claims during the year while the market average stood at about 71.4 per cent of the N536.5 billion gross claims reported at the close of fourth quarter, 2023.”
The commission further noted that in a direct reflection to its “no-premium no-cover” policy, the outstanding premium has continued to decline, as the industry posted just 1.6 per cent outstanding of all the premiums generated in the market during the period.
It further said within the period under review, total assets of the sector stood at about N2.67 trillion while capitalisation stood at N851 billion in 2023.
Giving a breakdown of claims payment by various classes, the commission said motor insurance class paid gross claims of N32.1 billion and net claims of N31.0 billion, fire insurance class paid gross claims of N61.5 billion and net claims of N41.3 billion.
It added that General Accident paid gross claims of N22.3 billion and net claims of 17.0 billion, marine class had a gross claims of N16.9 billion and net claims of 12.0 billion while oil and gas class had gross claims of N157.1 billion and net of N54.6 billion.
In terms of market size and market capitalisation, NAICOM said non-life had N1.669 billion assets, life had N1.00bbillion bringing the market aggregate to N2.673 billion.
Market capitalisation wise, it said non- life had N670.2 billion and life had N180.9 billion, bringing the aggregate to N851.0 billion.
In terms of outstanding premium, for non-life, outstanding premium stood at just 2.5 per cent of the total premium, life was 0.2 per cent, bringing the aggregate of outstanding premium for the industry in the period under review to 1.6 per cent.
