The Commissioner for insurance and Chief Executive Officer of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Sunday Thomas, revealed that the agency successfully mobilised the industry to contribute no less than N500 million and free Life Insurance cover for frontline workers in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the commission’s support to government.

Thomas said that in terms of its performances, the industry premium income between 2014 and 2022 grew at an average of 13.6 per cent from a premium income of N282 billion to N725.2 billion, adding that total assets of the sector also grew at an average of 12 per cent for the same period from a base of N827.5 billion in 2014 to N2.33 trillion in 2022.

The commissioner disclosed this yesterday in his welcome address at a two-day National Insurance Conference 2023 holding in Abuja. The conference was themed, “Redefining Safety’—Insurance solutions for Public buildings and Buildings under construction.”

Thomas appealed to the government to assist the commission to repeal all the obsolete laws that have made enforcement of insurance building codes ineffective.

According to them, the commission has continued to reach out to the state government and relevant security agencies in the enforcement of compulsory building insurances.

“The commission also provided financial assistance to tertiary institutions in Nigeria to facilitate education of professionals required by the insurance sector, projects in five tertiary institutions have been concluded and some commissioned while seven others are at various stages of completion,” he stated.

According to him, notwithstanding the growth that had been sustained, the roadmap enumerated some of the challenges affecting the desired growth of the insurance industry, which had persisted such as, talent gap, comparatively low public awareness, insurance affordability, lack of trust and confidence in insurers, cultural and religious bias, inadequate distribution channels, low enforcement of insurance among others.

He further said, “I am pleased to mention that over the next decade (2024-2033) the insurance industry will seek to continue its transformation journey along following strategic thrusts of transforming the regulatory environment to sustain the industry growth, transition to risk-based capital model, promote insurance awareness and adoption, enhancing digitalisation of the industry as well as deepening the industry’s talent pool and capabilities among others.”

Delivering a paper, titled: “Redefining Safety: Insurance Solutions for public buildings and buildings under construction,” the Group Chairman, Heirs Holdings, Tony Elumelu, said that past experiences of building collapse across the country has negatively led to the death of several persons as well as loss of several properties that cannot be recovered because of nation’s poor insurance culture.

“Insurance companies should henceforth contribute at least five per cent of their earnings for awareness campaigns to reduce cases of building collapse in Nigeria. In the last few years, we have recorded several cases of building collapse, last year many precious lives were lost, am calling on stakeholders to put in more efforts with NAICOM to ensure a comprehensive approach to reducing deaths, property loss,” he stated.

Elumelu suggested that as part of efforts to mitigate the challenges of the sector, insurance brokers should henceforth increase their capitalisation funds to N1 billion, saying all insurance companies should mandatorily contribute at least five per cent of their earnings to support the sector for five years, capital base of life insurance be raised to N20 billion while non-life insurance be raised to N30 billion.

In his contributions, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, assured that the National Assembly will shed more light on the need to amend all necessary laws that will reduce if not totally eradicate building collapse in Nigeria.