Industry Support Grows for Insurance Technology Event

Nigerian Insurance players are gearing up for the forth coming InTechExpo® 2008, the very big thing in the industry in particular and the financial services sector in general. The inaugural edition of the annual Insurance Technology Workshop and mini exhibition, otherwise known as ‘InTechExpo’, which comes up on the 4^{th of September at the Golden Gate Ikoyi, Lagos, a brainchild of Private Media Mart Limited in collaboration with the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), is structured to be the first of its kind in the continent whereby the leading lights in the sector is brought face-to-face with information communication technology (ICT) solution providers solely dedicated to offering solutions to the sector.}

Mr. Corporate Akinpelu, a manager with Alliance & General Insurance company limited in Lagos, while expressing his expectations from the event remarked that the event is expected to be great, based on the fact that Nigerian Insurers and all other players in the industry ought to be made aware of the tools of ICT and how it affects their business in the 21st century. He went ahead to state that, due to the fact that the Insurance Industry globally has moved away from the brick-and-mortar age to the clicks-and-button era, ICT deployment is no longer a matter of choice but the ultimate necessity to achieve market relevance.

Mr. Dennis Eyakovevu, managing director of a leading Insurance brokerage firm in Nigeria, expressed the optimism that InTechExpo® ’08 will be able to draw seasoned ICT experts to expound and instill the gospel of technology into the sector.

"You know that the major reason why our sector (Insurance) has not been able to measure up to global expectations unlike the banking industry which is mostly due to our ignorance on the value of Technology. With this event (InTechExpo), I have no doubt that the NIA and their partners PMM has hit the nail on the head of our seeming backwardness, am sure the event will change a lot in the industry" he concluded.

The InTechExpo® event, which is targeted at the sub-regional Insurance sector, is a one-day workshop and mini-exhibition with the theme – "Insurance Technology: Catalyst for Economic Development" – designed by PMM in collaboration with the Nigeria Insurers Association (NIA), to be an annual event meant to examine and review the current standards and encourage the adoption of technology tools in the insurance industry locally with global best practices as reference point.