Insurance Operators Lament Impact of Negative Economic indices

Ebere Nwoji

Insurance operators in the country have said that poor economic performance in 2022 affected underwriting business as a subset of the financial system.

The chairman, Nigeria Insurers Association (NIA), Mr Olusegun Omosehin, stated this at the 52nd Annual General Meeting of the association held in Lagos.

NIA is the umbrella of all the insurance underwriting companies in Nigeria.

He negative factors, he said, are; perennial power outages, internecine conflicts between herders and farmers, menace of kidnappers and bandits, insurgency in the North East especially around  the lake chad basin,  poor infrastructural facilities, galloping inflation, rising unemployment, flooding and other natural catastrophes, increasing poverty levels and geometric rise in exchange rate  of the naira to the US dollar.

He also said lack of access to foreign exchange and continued depreciation of Naira, among others during the year under review triggered high costs of operations for insurance operators.

He said but for the economic downturn experienced in the year and its effect on all aspects of national life, the Nigerian insurance industry would have done better.

He however said the insurance sector dared these challenges and was  able to grow its premium income to N726.2 billion last year, showing an increase of 33.9 per cent over N569.1 billion recorded in 2021.

He promised that the association would continue to work closely with the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) and other stakeholders within the financial and technology space to promote insurance and increase its contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP).

In her report on the effort of the NIA council and administrative seat to enhance the operations of the sector for optimum performance, the Director General of the association Mrs Yetunde Ilori said the council during the year under review continued to engage the office of the head of service of the federation to ensure that the group life insurance scheme achieved its purpose of providing succor to the families of deceased public servants.

“While we are happy with the modest gains made in our engagement with the head of service of the federation in the past one year the council will not relent until all issues affecting the smooth running of the scheme are resolved in the overall interest of the public, ”She stated.