Insurance companies charged to automate, improve business operations

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By Favour Nnabugwuh

The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has advised insurance  companies to sustain a competitive edge by automating, improving and optimizing their business processes without compromising efficiency, quality and response time.

The Head, Information Technology, NAICOM, Abiodun Aribike at the NAICOM 2022 retreat for Financial Journalists in Uyo Akwa Ibom State, maintained the sector needs to align with new technology, innovations, changing environment,  developments and changing customer expectation.
The reason behind that will help boost employee productivity, speed-up processes, raise customer service levels, improve customer experiences, reduce operational expenses and increase operational efficiency.
“The Insurance Industry is currently lagging behind and needs to reassess its business model, re-evaluate their strategy and make the digital agenda a high priority. If this is not done it will be difficult to deliver on customers’ expectations’.
 “It is time for Insurers to evolve and respond. This will require a different set of skills, culture and operating model.
Highlighting some of the processes industry need to catch with include: KYC verification, Customer Onboarding, Underwriting, Claims Processing and Policy Administration and Regulatory Compliance should be automated”, he reiterated.
He cited an example such as AI-powered underwriting solutions are already saving up to 97 percent of the time and resources that were traditionally required, enabling the corporate underwriter to specialize in cases that require deeper thought and analysis.
Also Aribike mentioned Robotic Process Automation, RPA, which reproduces human actions as closely as possible can be used to automate recurring IT tasks in the back office, front office and support levels and frees up to 30 percent of the user’s time. Staff can therefore focus on actions with higher added value

He noted that the adoption of technologies such as, Cloud computing; Mobile technology; Artificial intelligence (AI); Distributed ledger technology and Blockchain and Internet of things, will help in providing digital solutions for increased insurance penetration.

Howbeit, he said it does not indicate how many people have insurance coverage, the quality of the coverage and the value it provides for insurance consumers
Nigeria Insurance Market Penetration rates for the past 6 years are   0.48 percent in 2016 to 0.54 percent in 2017 then to 0.61 percent in 2018 moved to  0.71 percent in 2019 further to  0.72 percent in 2020 and   0.88 percent in 2021
“An estimated 2 percent Nigerian Adults are covered by Insurance today.
The low Insurance penetration can be increased through the Digital technology has taken the world by storm affecting, changing and improving the way things are done”
According to Aribike, “It  is disrupting traditional operating structures and Industries such as telecommunications, media, entertainment and consumer products have been impacted in the way they attract and retain customers.”.

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