Ebere Nwoji
Anchor Insurance Company Limited, said it realised total premium of N5.1 billion in its unaudited account for the 2020 year .The company also said it raked in a total premium of N4.2 billion in 2019.
Speaking with journalists in Lagos recently, the Managing Director of the Company, Mr. Ebose Augustine, disclosed that despite the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on business operations, Anchor Insurance was still able to achieve the positive result, noting that the underwriting firm’s production would have risen above N7 billion by now if the pandemic had not set in.
According to him, “we started the year well and from all our efforts and aggressive marketing, it was clear we were going to hit at least N7 billion by mid-year 2020, but for the pandemic since March which has made the insuring public to review their insurance budgets downwards.”
According to him, “despite the Covid-19 challenges, we have surpassed the N4.2 billion premium income we wrote in 2019 as I can confidently tell you that as at second week of this month of August, our performance stood at N5.1 billion.”
He was optimistic that for the remaining months in the year, the company will raise this result to a greater figure.
Responding to how the company has been marketing its products since the advent of Covid-19, Ebose, explained that, “it was like we at Anchor Insurance foresaw this pandemic period when we invested in most modern information technology to drive our business.
“So, it was not difficult for us to continue to navigate the insurance market using what we had already put in place and it has really helped in ensuring we never suffered any panic in this era of doing business differently.”
He added, “This manifest new approach to doing insurance business even before the advent of Covid-19 alongside other giant strides made by the company.”
He hinted further that the company was strongly pursuing its recapitalisation in line with the order of the National Insurance Commission, noting that Anchor Insurance would recapitalize without any merger plan to retain its brand identity.
“As for the recapitalisation ordered by our regulator, our Board of Directors does not want anything that will alter the company’s identity. It is, therefore, our resolve to recapitalise alone as Anchor Insurance Company Limited. We do not have plans for now to acquire any company that might not be meeting up with the recapitalisation requirements but we can buy over their policy portfolios where the need arises,” he explained.
