97% of Nigerians not insured –NAICOMj
The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), has revealed that only three percent of Nigerians have insurance and 97 per cent do not have as they are undecided or not properly sensitised on the gains therein.
To put it in perspective, the current population of Nigeria is estimated to be 200 million. Ninety-seven percent of that figure means about 197 million of the population are not insured.
NAICOM’s Assistant Director, Corporate Strategy and Special Duties, Dr. Usman Jankara, made the disclosure in a paper he delivered at the recently-held journalists’ seminar in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, titled: “Insurance sector and the Nigerian Economy: Impact, Challenges and the new Frontiers”.
According to him, the number of those insured is a paltry three million. He said: “Concerning the number of those insured, it is put at three million. As at last year when the figure was taken, Nigeria is assumed to be 200 million.
“From 2015 till date, when you look at gross premium income of the industry, we were at N282 billion in 2015, and today it is N736 billion, representing average growth of 15 per cent.”
Jankara also put forward that, “That is not to say the industry couldn’t have done better, but to point to the fact that things are not as bad as they were today. There has been no economy that has grown 15 per cent over a 10-year period. None of the sub-sectors have done that.
“As of 2015, assets grew from N917 billion to N2.32 trillion in 2022, an exceptional growth of about 60 per cent. Our insurance penetration rate, that is insurance to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 0.4 per cent and the insurance density, that is, how many Nigerians are insured, is 1.5 per cent.”
Jankara maintained that life insurance grew from N86 billion in 2015 to N309.1 billion in 2022.
“Also, non-life insurance grew from N198.3 billion in 2015 to N417.3 billion in 2022”, he added.
Earlier in his welcome remarks at the event, NAICOM’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr Sunday Thomas, said efforts on to deepen insurance sensitisation to achieve wider penetration.
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