By Sola Alabadan
Nigerian insurance and pension operators have been urged to give favourable consideration to deliberate and sustained insurance and pension awareness, as part of efforts to make the Federal Government’s financial inclusion initiative a success.
This was part of the communique issued at the 2021 National Conference of The National Association Of Insurance and Pension Correspondents (NAIPCO) in Lagos recently. The Theme of the conference was “COVID-19 Impact On Financial Inclusion: Opportunities For Insurance & Pension Sectors”.
Participants at the conference also advised the Insurance and pension sectors to take advantage of Covid-19 pandemic to grow both sectors.
The two sectors were equally charged to work more on their products and services, by simplifying their products and improving service delivery.
Besides, the operators were urged to ensure that the Insurance products and pension plans are personalized towards meeting individual customer’s needs, while special products be developed to meet the needs of those in the Micro insurance and Micro pension segments.
Pension Administrators were counselled to offer Incentives like basic levels of healthcare, to encourage clients to remain with their pension provider after their retirement.
Insurance and Pension sectors should embrace digitalization, constant and continued training of workforce to drive growth.
The current Pension Law should be reviewed to offer clients more flexible options that will give them more control over their future while also catering to the profit motive of operators, the conference noted.
Pension and insurance industries must remain committed to the inclusive growth of the Nigeria economy.
Considering the peculiarities of Nigerians and Nigerian situation, the Insurance and Pension sectors were enjoined to embrace self recapitalisation and regulations of the two sectors.
The conference emphasised the need to review rates and revisit some of the policy conditions and exclusions earlier permissible for some insurance.
