The Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) has stressed the need for stakeholders to explore the option of digital collation to track underwriting firms that do not pay claims to policyholders.

This was disclosed at the investiture of the 26th Chairman of the association, Kunle Ahmed, in Lagos.

Ahmed said the digital collation and tracking of claims payments would delight customers and reduce insurance fraud.

He submitted that insurance companies only issue a promissory note after consummating a transaction, the test of the promise happens only when a claim is reported, noting that the issue is no longer whether insurance companies pay claims or not.

In 2023, he said, the industry paid N536.5 billion in claims, a 54 per cent growth over the claims paid in 2022.

He said despite the feat made on claims payment, there is still some work to be done because companies would be unable to maximise the budget on publicity and media campaigns without paying attention to the ease of making a claim and the improvement of the claim process.

“We will work with market stakeholders to self-regulate and enforce market best practices amongst members from the point of onboarding a client to claims payment. We must continually look for a reason to pay a claim, rather than look for a reason not to. In addition, we will also be focussed on the following,” he said.