By Sola Alabadan
As part of efforts to codify the long-term aspiration of the Nigerian insurance industry within a given period of 10 years, the insurance operators have resolved to come up with a document detailing the 10-year industry-wide strategic plan.
Insurers Committee’s Vice-Chairman, Publicity Sub-Committee, Mr. Segun Omosehin, announced this to journalists at the end of the Committee’s meeting held in Lagos on Thursday.
He said all the constituent arms of the industry, comprising the insurance companies, insurance brokers, reinsurers, loss adjusters, as well as the regulator, National Insurance Commission, have been asked to nominate their members to represent them in a committee that will be saddled with the responsibility to draft the document.
According to him, “today we deliberated on the need for an industry-wide strategic plan, a strategic document that will codify the long-term aspiration of the industry within a given period of 10 years.”
Omosehin, who is also the Managing Director of Old Mutual Insurance PLC, said the document will be a high level document that will have in it what the industry intends to achieve, adding that work on the document will commence soon.
“The need for a strategic plan is to enable us, as an industry, has codified strategic initiatives that will be implemented over a given period of 10 years. This will help the successive leadership that comes in so that there are no vacuum. It helps guide the action of leadership in terms of what we want to achieve as industry. It keeps us in focus. That is what the strategic document is meant to do for the industry and it will cut across the entire gamut of the industry from underwriting to broking to adjusting. It is going to be a ten-year plan,” Omosehin explained.
He added that the industry rebranding project will automatically become an integral element of the document.
Omosehin further stressed that “the industry’s proposed strategic document is to help each successive leader that comes in. Take Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) for instance, if I am running for two years, there is a need for a broader industry-wide initiative that I am expected to run along with my own plan”. This, he said, will help every leader to achieve an industry-wide objective.
Also speaking on the document, a member of the committee, and Head, Corporate Communication and Market Development, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Mr. Rasaaq Salami, said NAICOM as a regulator, will be part of the plan which, according to him, will cover the various associations in the industry.
He said different associations in the industry have been asked to nominate members that will be part of the committee that will handle the drafting of the document.
Omosehin informed that other decision taken at the meeting was the revise guidelines on Bancassurance.
“We received some cheery news that regulator is likely to release some new guidelines on Bancassurance. Some elements in the guidelines are being reviewed and so we are hopeful and looking forward to some revised role on the operations of Bancassurance,” he said.
