Niger Insurance Announces N5.96 premium

Ebere Nwoji

Niger Insurance Plc has announced a gross premium written of N5.963billion for the year ended December 31, 2016.
This shows significant drop from the N10.498billion gross premium written by the company in 2015.

Operating profit for the group was N99.045million against N736.031million recorded in 2015.The group’s net operating profit after tax stood at N42.13 million in 2016 against N600.912 million in 2015 while total assets increased by 7 percent to stand at N22.511 billion against N20.990 billion in 2015.

These results were announced by the Niger insurance Plc Chairman Yusuf Abubakar at the 47th annual general meeting of the company held in Lagos recently.

Addressing the shareholders on the reason for the less impressive result made by the company in the 2016 business year, Abubakar stated that the year 2016 was very challenging for the insurance industry

According to him, certain factors including shrinking federal/ state governments’ revenues, unavoidable devaluation of the Naira and high energy cost resulting in inflationary landscape, access to forex by businesses and individuals adding that all worked together to make things tough for the industry during the period under review.

On how the Niger Insurance group fared in the face of these, Abubakar said: “Despite challenging economic indices, the group delivered a modest performance in 2016 with the overall result reflecting a fairly strong and sustainable company built on solid fundamentals indicating that strict implementation of its strategic initiatives will take it to greater heights,”

He said the company, during the period, managed to break even as a result of its prudent underwriting management.

On the future outlook of the company, the Niger Insurance boss, said the company’s management, would ride on the van of various economic growth strategies and positive policies and efforts of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) especially the enforcement of compulsory insurances to grow the company in the current year.

“We will navigate the path to meet our medium -term business strategies and retain our ability to deliver value creation to our shareholders. Our main focus shall be to enlarge our customer base and enrich our customers by proving more value-added products in a faster and more efficient manner following recent regulatory proclamation. The company, is now set and poised for the sale of annuity insurance,” he said.

He also said the capital raising project of the company is ongoing, adding that this has become more apt in view of the pending adoption by NAICOM of the risk based supervision.

“The regulator has muted the idea of imminent mergers and acquisition in the industry, strong capital base will put your company in better stead to underwrite more business thereby creating more value to shareholders”, he said.

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