Firm to boost insurance penetration through innovation, technology

African Alliance Insurance Plc, has disclosed its plan to drive growth in the insurance industry and deepen insurance penetration through the launch of innovative products and the use of technology.

According to the company, there was need for it to redress innovation and drive its products with emerging technology, while building effective communication to serve its customers effectively.

Speaking at the unveiling of the company’s new brand identity recntly in Lagos, Non-Executive Director and Interim Chairman of Board of Directors, African Alliance, Anthony Okocha, said the drive was going to impact positively on the fortunes of the company.

He noted that part of the strategies the company had set down was the launch of a new brand identity, which awould add value and set a new direction for the company to drive its cooperate society.

He said: “We feel highly elated as this is a very important day in our lives and a very important day for the life insurance industry in general.

“As highlighted, this company is the first life insurance company in Nigeria and this is the first major attempt to rebrand this company in almost 60 years of its existence and so I think this is a mile stone.

“The first major thing we are trying to do is to bring to the public consciousness the new identity for the company and encompassed under this new identity are those things that has been lined up to ensure that it impacts the growth of the industry.

“We are going to redress innovation, drive our product with technology and there would be effective communication, as we would speak in the language people would understand. We believe that all these added together with the various products we have is going to impact so much on our growth and that of the industry.

“Today you may sit at home and buy policies without even knowing where the insurance company is located and that is the impact of technology today.”

He noted that the company is becoming penetrative as its products are now being designed in a manner that would enable life policy lenders to enjoy some benefits even before their demise.

In her remarks, Managing Director, African Alliance, Funmi Omo, said the launch of the new brand identity by the company was an idea to better position itself to increase awareness of the brand in the minds of all Nigerians.

She said: “It is our hope, that this will help us to project the image of the company and make us more relevant in the lives of our people. At every point in time, one needs to take a good review.”

“In the life of a company, it must also from time to time look for ways to reinvent itself and one of the ways to achieve that is through brand unveil to refresh the minds of the organisation and the people.

“The whole idea is to increase brand awareness, which will bring brand loyalty. We will support it with a lot of what we have already done which we will continue to do and that is deploy infrastructure, improve technology and we are going digital.

“We have been in the online space and we intend to intensify that strategy and to ensure that we continue to sustain it and we hope that all these strategies that we are deploying will improve the brand image and will gain traction to the youth because that’s where the market is,” she said

She noted that the company would use this strategy to deepen penetration and as it is sure that it would deepen penetration particularly with the youth as research has shown that 60 per cent of the population are youths.