The National Insurance Commission has urged insurance brokers to establish their presence in all the nooks and crannies of the country to accelerate insurance penetration and financial inclusion.
The acting Commissioner for Insurance, Mr Sunday Thomas, gave the counsel when the delegation of the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers, led by its President, Dr Bola Onigbogi paid a visit to the commission in Abuja.
Thomas said the vision to have the nation’s critical population accept and patronise insurance services would only be achieved if brokers who were professional intermediaries extended more of their operations to remote areas of the country, rather than urban areas.
While promising the support of NAICOM in accelerating insurance growth by collaborating with all insurance stakeholders, the commissioner advised operators, particularly insurance brokers, to be more creative in their product development initiatives so as to make insurance first line of consideration by Nigerians, irrespective of their location and financial status.
Thomas expressed concern over the concentration of insurance companies and brokerage firms in major cities and their reliance on government accounts, stressing that there would not be effective enforcement of compulsory insurances in the hinterland with poor presence of underwriting and brokerage firms there.
Responding to Onigbogi’s appeal on insurance penetration, which was his cardinal focus as the president and chairman governing board of the NCRIB, Thomas noted that the issue of enforcement of insurance in Nigeria had always been on demand and supply side.
The commissioner advised that NAICOM used its zonal offices to sensitise the public about the importance of insurance.
In deepening insurance penetration, the acting commissioner alluded to the fact that irrespective of operators’ poor presence in some states and local government areas, issues of building collapse, fire incidence in offices and marketplaces, road accidents, flood and other insurable disasters continued.