The Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu has highlighted the importance of information and communications technology (ICT) tools in driving the insurance market’s online platform recently introduced by Pinet Informatics, one of Nigeria’s pioneer Internet service providers (ISPs).
The minister listed the importance of ICT tools, while launching the insurance market online platform, known as insurancemarket.ng, at the e-Insurance Conference organised by Pinet Infirmatics in Lagos recently.
He called on all stakeholders in the insurance industry to leverage on ICT to leverage the potential of the Nigerian insurance industry, which he said has not been fully harnessed.
The minister, while delivering a keynote address titled, “Driving Insurance Penetration with Information and Communications Technology,” noted that the nation’s insurance sector, which provides support to financial institutions has not been fully explored, saying “the Insurance sector despite being a major driver of business growth that provides a critical support system to the financial market, has not fared well given the current size of the Nigerian economy and population.
“Information available to me indicates that there are less than 1.5 million insurance policyholders, representing a paltry 0.9 per of a population of well over 170 million citizens. Similarly, the gross premium of the sector is said to be less than N500 billion, implying that the sector contributes less than 1per cent to national GDP,” Shittu said, while advising the stakeholders to fully embrace technology to further deepen insurance penetration in the country.
In his welcome address at the launch of insurancemarket.ng, the Chief Executive Officer of Pinet Informatics, Mr. Lanre Ajayi, said the need to launch the insurance online marketplace, was to bridge the gap between insurance and technology. According to him, the idea of holding an e-Insurance conference came when it was realised that the insurance industry in Nigeria has not optimally benefitted from the huge opportunities offered by ICT.
Ajayi said the market would offer insurance companies the opportunities to set up micro websites at the marketplace, where everyone could buy from any of the vendors. “The online platform promises to transform the way insurance business is transacted in Nigeria,” Ajayi said.
Panelists at the conference highlighted the challenges in the insurance industry and proffered solutions on how to address them, using available technology tools.
Managing Director at Rack Centre, Mr. Tunde Coker, who delivered one of the keynote addresses at the e-Insurance conference, said some disruptive technologies must be put in place to revolutionise the insurance industry, using technologies, which he said, were readily available. According to him, global insurance heat maps, competitive market growth, risk of opportunities, among other factors, were pointers to the fact that Nigeria is still far behind countries like South Africa, Kenya and Zambia in e-Insurance business. He, however, said there were enormous opportunities for growth in the sector, which must be harnessed, using technology.
The conference concluded that there was need for stronger alliance between the insurance practitioners and ICT industry, in order to deepen insurance penetration.
The ICT community was also encouraged to come up with solutions that would help in deepening the penetration of insurance in Nigeria. The forum advised insurance firms to innovate and leverage on technology to drive the industry.