Experts task insurers on digital channels adoption

Stakeholders in the Information and Technology industry (IT) have advised insurance players to enhance product sales through the adoption of technology.

According to them, this would enable the sector to contribute meaningfully to economic growth.

The experts, who spoke at the just concluded Insurance Meets Tech 2022, convened by Motion Communications, also believed that collaboration is a critical strategy that would help accelerate the growth of the nation’s insurance industry.

Speaking on the role of big data and cloud computing in bolstering the operations of the Nigerian insurance sector, the Country Manager of Microsoft Nigeria, Ola Williams said: “Data is a source of wealth and power, and it has become a key disruptive factor that organisations leverage for competitive advantage. Cloud computing is also key to organizations’ insight acquisition for detailed reporting of different aspects of their operational efficiencies.

“ Since insurance is the transfer of risk from one entity to another, as an insurer, data gives insight into the behaviors and preferences of individuals and as such, supports the provision of differentiated offerings to customers. Indeed, the limit to how we can use data is in our imagination, ” she said.

The Chairman of the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), Olusegun Omosehin also highlighted the importance of collaborations and partnerships between the insurance and technology industries as a means of deepening insurance penetration in Nigeria.

Also speaking on the functionality of technology for driving change in the Nigerian insurance ecosystem, Group Chief Executive Officer, Old Mutual West Africa, Samuel Ogbu, said: “Insurance exists to solve problems and create value, and this can be achieved through collaboration and partnerships. However, the problems with insurance value creation in Nigeria have evolved, and solutions provided by insurers in this regard must align with the fundamental evolution and revolution of strategies.

“Innovative technology has a key part to play in the evolution of insurance value creation, and the knowledge of revolutionary insurance strategies rely heavily on data analytics which is a key provision of technology”.

Executive Head of Sales, Leadway Assurance Company Limited, Sola Ajayi, also explained that the insurance industry is enthusiastic about technological innovation.

He also noted that though the sector had progressively slowed in the last two years, it would experience lots of unbundling of insurance products using technology.

In his contributions, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, PaddyCover, Mayowa Owolabi, highlighted the importance of regulatory enablement in achieving technological adoptions and collaborations in the insurance industry.

In a keynote address, Executive Director of Corporate Banking, Kola Adeleke, who represented the Managing Director of Ecobank Nigeria, Jubril Mobolaji Lawal urged the insurance sector to take a cue from the banking sector, which has revolutionalised into a massive digitisation phase.

“Ecobank, for instance, invested greatly in tech to run a multi-geography, multi-lingual, one-bank platform across our 33 affiliates which currently serves over 1.9 million people in Nigeria”.

Similarly, the Managing Director, Interswitch Systegra, Jonah Adams, said: “Organisations must strategise by leveraging new technologies to provide financial and insurance services to the 100 million unbanked Nigerians. One great way of doing that is by providing these services in nano sizes for the retail-driven and unbanked Nigerian population. The insurance market is ready for collaborations and scaling”.

At the plenary session, the Chief Executive Officer / Co-founder, of Curacel, Henry Mascot said: “Insurance is a complex financial service to sell, and its digitisation is a surefire way to simplify its consumption and accessibility by consumers. A groundswell regulatory approach must also be employed to ensure that people are legal.