NAICOM Boss to Review Industry Performance at CIIN Forum

In the past few years, particularly in the last three years, the insurance industry has witnessed tremendous improvement, compared to what it used to be decades back. However the true state of affairs as it relates to the exact growth margin, solvency status, regulatory efforts and results as well as the prospects of the industry, remained largely unknown to industry watchers. All that is needed to be known in the industry will be unveiled shortly by the regulatory body, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) as the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria holds the 2010 professional forum next month. The unveiling of the industry will be anchored by the commissioner for insurance, Mr. Fola Daniel. The conference which is slated for September 15 to 18 in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital, will also review the prospects and challenges which the industry has face during the past years, especially under the global economic meltdown and local challenges. According to Adegboyega Adepegba, the director-general of the institute, the choice of this year’s conference which is “After the Gloom, Matters Arising,” was arrived at as a way of rededicating the minds of the professionals to more pragmatic issues that will move the industry forward, instead of counting losses arising from the global economic meltdown. Adepegba stated that “it had become more expedient for managers, including insurance professionals, to engage in productive rethinking of their management strategies in order to strike the right chords and arrive at the winning formula for keeping their businesses afloat.” The CIIN boss had also appraised NAICOM confidence in the industry performance in recent times, a situation which led to industry premium growth from the N178 billion in time past to N1 trillion at present. He stated that the forum will avail participants of the opportunity to achieve a taller dream both in terms of raising the premium level and raising its contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the present 3 percent to about 7 percent. He corroborated the stand of NAICOM that the conference will open new vistas to stakeholders in assessing the journey so far and working out measures aimed at raising the present industry status. Also to be looked into is the way forward especially in raising the market penetration level from its present abysmally low level to a standard that is relatively comparable to the industry counterparts in the developed economies of the world. The level of insurance penetration stands at about 6 percent and industry watchers opined that if the gains of the industry must be sustained, there was need to raise the penetration level to something significant, whish should be in the neighbourhood of 30 percent