Analyst Decries Nigerians low Appreciation of Life Insurance

Spending in the Life insurance sector has dropped significantly in the last two year. This according to experts is not unconnected with the general decline in the economy which cannot be detached from the insurance industry. According to an analyst and consultant on insurance and pension, Barrister Sylvester Oyatun, Nigerians hre yet to embrace life insurance and the obvious gains from it as it is done in the developed economies. He stated that the drop in life insurance premium base, though low but warned that it could have had a greater toll on the industry but for the group life insurance under the reformed pension Act which has reduced the anticipated impact. Corroborating the drop along the line of general economic downturn, Business Monitor International (BMI), an international research agency, Nigerians unlike the developed nations ,do not use insurance to provide for their long term income needs, a situation that makes insurance unable to meet the needs of the people over the years. "Most products do not provide protection against inflation, which has traditionally been a problem in Nigeria with the result that lapse rates are extremely high," the report added. Oyatun had noted that the bane of life insurance premium growth, had been partly due to the fact that some life insurance policy holders had to cancel their policy due to their inability to meet premium payment demand. It would be recalled that out of the total insurance industry premium of N200.6 billion generated by member companies of the Nigerian Insurers Association in 2009, life business contributed only N39.2 billion with the chunk of the remaining N161.4 billion coming from non-life business. This, he noted is contrary to the dictates in the developed economies where life insurance contributes a higher premium than the general insurance category. He stated that spending on insurance is on the least of priority list for most Nigerians, especially as its benefits are largely not immediate. With this finding, it is obvious that some life insurance policyholders who could not meet their premium payments decided to withdraw or cancel some of their policies, while others who sought loans but were unable to access same opted to sell off their life policies for cash. The result is a significant drop in many insurers' premium income. It will also be recalled that, Mr.Akin Laguda, chairman, Continental Reinsurance plc, while recently explained that there was a drop in the company’s life insurance premium. The premium, he noted dropped by 27 percent from N1.2 billion in 2008 to N901 million in 2009, stating that the company was notified of “a substantial policy cancellations relating to previous years on individual and group life assurances." While calling for caution in the area of large volume transaction due to this ugly situation, the analyst said "most products do not provide protection against inflation, which has traditionally been a problem in Nigeria with the result that lapse rates are extremely high," they add.  Oyatun therefore call on insurance companies to brace the storm by adopting innovative new products formulation that are people friendly and could stand the test of time. Industry analysts therefore suggest that insurers must not underestimate the importance of product feature and strategy, even as they pursue their distribution network. But especially significant, they add, is the need to innovate as conditions change and service goes unmet.