Insurance Professionals Urge Operators to Embrace Digitisation

The Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria has urged insurance operators to evolve, embrace change and digitise their processes to enable them to meet customers’ needs and expectations.

This was part of the communiqué issued at the end of its 2021 Insurance Professionals Forum in Abeokuta, Ogun State, with the theme ‘The insurance industry in the digital age’.

The professionals urged the regulator to encourage, support and facilitate the digitalisation change in the insurance industry and provide guidance for other stakeholders.

They said, “There is a need for data analytics to promote digitisation; there is an urgent need for the adoption of digital sales agents.

“There is a need to promote ethical standards within the industry so as to earn public trust in services provided by operators; and to take advantage of the existing payment system in Nigeria with a view to promoting multiple premium payment methods such as USSD and mobile app.”

The CIIN highlighted the need for professionals to secure the insurance industry space with digitalisation.

It recognised the need for professionals to learn and acquire new soft skills required to achieve digital operations.

The institute stressed the need to assess or evaluate the impact of digitisation on the operations of the insurance industry and take collaborative efforts to manage the risks exposures

Speaking at the conference, the Commissioner for Insurance, Mr Sunday Thomas, said, “The insurance industry is currently lagging behind and needs to reassess its business model, re-evaluate its strategy and make the digital agenda a high priority.

“If this is not done, it will be difficult to deliver on customers’ expectations and new entrants, insurtech companies and leading digital competitors, will take advantage of this weakness. It is time for insurers to evolve and do the needful.”

He said this would require a different set of skills, culture and operating model.

According to him, the only explorable option for the industry is to maximise its positioning in the digital age as waiting is not an option.

He said that an insurance company in Columbus, Ohio, US, had embraced the use of AI, cloud computing, machine learning to enable everyone with smartphone get a motor rate based primarily on their driving behaviour, rather than relying on historically based demographic data to determine rates.

Thomas said, “The commission is desirous of a fully digitised industry. More so, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption and the use of digital technologies in the Nigerian insurance sector.

“To this extent, on September 1, 2021, the NAICOM Portal was successfully launched. In order to ensure effective and efficient utilisation of the portal, the commission directed all operators to integrate, connect and upload five years historical data of all policies issued from January 1, 2016 to NAICOM Portal on or before March 1, 2021.”