Over 8 million motor insurance certificates have been captured in the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database (NIID), six years after the platform was created by the umbrella body of insurance underwriters in Nigeria, the Nigeria Insurers Association( NIA).
Also, the insurance industry, last year recorded annual turnover of N380 million in the 2016 financial year.
These were made known at the 46th annual general meeting of NIA, which held in Lagos recently.
Speaking during the AGM, NIA Chairman, Eddie Efekoha, said the price of crude oil; epileptic power supply; cut throat inflation; internal conflicts between herdsmen and farmers; a near comatose economy and the prolonged recession had serious consequences on the operations of insurance companies.
He stated that the association is working on the establishment of a common platform for the sale of third party motor insurance policies.
“The estimated volume of business underwritten by the industry in 2016 was estimated at N380 billion as against N311billion underwritten in 2015â€, he said.
He said in spite of the challenges posed by the economy, the suspension of the Federal Reporting Council Code of Corporate Governance, implementation and improved compliance with ‘no premium no cover’ especially by the Federal parastatals and ministries departments and agencies, improved Anti-Money Laundering mechanism, full implementation of the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS); improved enforcement of the compulsory insurances; renewed vigour by the government to improve the Ease of Doing Business and other efforts, the insurance industry has continued to be the preferred investment destination for reputable players in the global insurance.
On NIID platform, Efekoha, said the platform was demonstrated at the last association retreat of Chief Executive Officers of member companies in March 2017, adding that the association and the service provider are working hard to ensure that all the issues raised at the presentation are fully addressed.
He further said that in the association’s desire to extend the coverage of the NIID to other states of the federation, it encountered the challenge of network coverage and internet connectivity.
He stressed that the association is taking steps to resolve the issue through the deployment of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code.
According to him, the marine module has been running and member companies are daily uploading on the platform, adding that at the end of May 2017, 33 member-Companies have uploaded 65,000 marine policies.
He called on members of the association to continue to upload their marine policies, stressing that plans are being made to bring other stakeholders into the scheme.
