Domesticate Products to Win Public Confidence- Insurers Urged

 The managing director of Lucas Insurance Agency, Mr. Lucas Enakhimon has called on the Nigerian insurance professionals to take insurance to the next level by domesticating the products and entrenching confidence in the mind of the insuring public. He stated that most of the products being parade by today’s insurers are actually offshoots of the ones handed to them by the colonial masters who brought insurance to Nigeria nearly a century ago. According to the veteran insurance broker, Nigeria was richly endowed and therefore capable of developing home-grown products that will be people friendly. He traced the poor pubic image of insurance today to the negative attitude which some insurers have embraced over the years. Among the greatest problems which the industry has suffered till date are those that borders on mutual suspicion arising from public perception that the insurance companies will not compensate them in the event of an insured loss. He stated that in “in fairness to the insuring public, many have been shortchanged over time by insurers who capitalize on their ignorance to rip them off.”
He lamented that an industry that is coming from such background, cannot afford to do business as usual, stressing that “it amounts to building on a faulty foundation which will very likely collapse along the line” He identified the technically weak insurance companies of the pre-recapitalization era as responsible for some of the bad image confronting the industry today. However notwithstanding these shortcomings, Mr. Enakhimon stated that the insurance professionals have vast opportunities to exploit in the country which “they have only managed to scratch in the surface.” According to the veteran broker, some of the products which the insurers are yet to fully explore are the “compulsory insurance of storey buildings and building under construction, comprehensive vehicle insurance, arising from the number of vehicles plying our roads, wedding and funeral ceremonies and life insurance among others.”
He stressed that he was waiting for the time when the public would be adequately asensitized to buy insurance without any prompting. While thanking the leadership of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) and the Nigeria Insurers Association (NIA) for their efforts so far, he charged them to take more concrete steps at changing public perception and growing the industry to the level of others in the developed world.