By Favour Nnabugwu
Ninety seven percent of Nigerians are still uncertain about taking insurance without considering without considering the huge claims benefit thereof.
The country is estimated to be about 200 population and out of this figure only three million are with insurance which leave about 197 without insurance.
Out of the figure, only 3 million Nigerians have insurance, according to the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM).
Dr Usman Jankara, Assistant Director of Corporate Strategy and Special Duties in a paper he delivered at Naicom’s seminar for financial journalists in Akwa Ibom, titled, Insurance sector and the Nigerian Economy: Impact, Challenged and the new Frontiers
“Concerning the number of those insured, it is put at three million. As at last year when the figure was taken, Nigeria is assumed to be 200 million.
“From 2015 till date, when you look at Gross Premium Income of the industry, we were at N282 billion in 2015, and today it is N736 billion, representing average growth of 15 per cent”
Jankara also put forward that “That is not to say the industry couldn’t have done better, but to point to the fact that things are not as bad as they were today. There has been no economy that has grown 15 per cent over a 10-year period. None of the sub-sectors have done that”.
“As of 2015, assets grew from N917 billion to N2.32 trillion in 2022, an exceptional growth of about 60 per cent.
Our insurance penetration rate, that is insurance to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 0.4 per cent, and the insurance density, that is, how many Nigerians are insured, is 1.5 per cent, he added
According to him, “Life insurance grew from N86 billion in 2015 to N309.1 billion in 2022. Also, non-life insurance grew from N198.3 billion in 2015 to N417.3 billion in 2022.”
