As part of its efforts to boost the agricbusiness sector in Nigeria, Universal Insurance Plc has secured the approval of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) to underwrite agriculture insurance. This ‘no objection’ nod will enable Universal support farmers and service providers in the agricultural value chain for greater sustainability and economic growth.
With this approval, the underwriting firm is now well positioned to broaden its product offerings to consumers, which is in line with the federal government’s objective to deepen insurance penetration in Nigeria.
Among the products approved for financing are: fishery agricultural insurance plan and poultry agricultural insurance plan. In a statement made available to Daily Sun, the management of Universal stated that the agribusiness sector in Nigeria needs insurance to remain sustainable and achieve long term growth expectation. The company further maintained that stakeholders in the agricultural value chain must embrace insurance if they want to reduce retained risk by transferring the burden to insurers for effective risk management.
According to the company, this development is strategically accelerating its business objective of building a dominant company in the Nigerian insurance industry.
The Universal Insurance Poultry policy covers death of the poultry animals resulting from accident or disease while the Fishery policy covers loss of fish caused by death and cost of reconstruction of fish pond in the event of collapse.