NIA organises fair on micro cover

THE Nigerian insurers Association (NIA) will on November 18, 2015 organise a micro-insurance fair that will bring all stakeholders in the same platform to discuss relevance of micro-insurance in deepening insurance penetration in Nigeria.

The Director-General of the Association, Sunday Thomas, speaking at an interactive session with journalist in Lagos, said the platform will bring the stakeholders to discuss the way forward in the industry.

He said the main objectives of the fair is to sensitise the stakeholders, that is the underwriters, brokers, agents, insuring public and the general public at large, of course, we are also involving the regulator, s the commissioner for insurance will be in attendance to deliver the key note address.

We consider the fair very important because looking at the structure of the Nigerian population, we want to leverage on it to deepen insurance penetration in Nigeria. As it is today, Nigeria is ranked fourth by volume in Africa of course, the exchange rate has affected the figure because of our conversion.

We have South Africa ahead of us, we have Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria is in the fourth position. We are not giving too much gap to Kenya and what is happening, in as much as the exchange rate has affected us, we also believe by reason of our economic standing in Africa and also our population which are drivers of growth in the insurance sector, we should leverage on these to increase the depth of insurance in Nigeria.

Of course he said, in terms of structure, we know Nigerians are in the low income group, and therefore we want to develop products,-member companies are developing products that will meet the demands of these group of people. When we are looking at the micro-insurance products, some of our member companies are already keying into this vision or initiative and are already developing products that will meet the demand of the low income group.

The fair is to bring all stakeholders in the same platform to discuss some of these issues. It is also to sensitise the general public on the relevance and importance of micro-insurance as financial intermediatory mechanism in the insurance sector of the economy.