The management of Leadway Assurance Company Limited has enjoined insurance companies to consciously create digital channels that are customer friendly, customer-centric and always make the customer happy, so as to remain relevant in the nearest future.
Mr. Akinyemi Alebiosu, Principal Investment and Strategy, Leadway Assurance, gave this charge while speaking on “Insurance For The Future In 2021” at the virtual training for insurance journalists organised by the insurance company on Wednesday.
He said that underwriting would be driven by data in the future.
Alebiosu maintained that if companies have proper data, they can predict incidents of loss and properly price it.
He said: “Data is the new oil and underwriting in the future is going to be driven by data and analytics. We are getting to a point where we will be using historical records, using robotics, artificial intelligence in making decisions of pricing, type and extent of risks we take.
“Insurance companies of the future will seek to collect large pools of data, analyse it, try to make meaning of it, prepare or create predictive models, at the end of the day make decisions that will make the product better. For example, in analysing the data, I want to know the pain point of our customers, what is their biggest concern, how am I able to create products that meet these needs at the lowest cost because if I have a proper data I can predict incidents of loss and properly price it and also know what their price point is. So at the end of the day if we use data and analytics correctly in our underwriting process, the customer will be happy, the underwriter will be happy and all the stakeholders will benefit from the insurance ecosystem.”
Alebiosu also stated that, for insurance products, the insurance operators need to consciously gravitate from directly selling to customers to creating digital channels that are customer friendly and customer centric.
“For example, if I want to buy insurance, I don’t need to call somebody, I just go to the website, I can find what I need and make a purchase. We need to be able to meet our customers over the social media, because they want to send us messages and get instant answer. Social media is also an avenue for customer education. If we compare the number of Nigerians on social media and the number of Nigerians that have insurance, you will see that we have a very long way to go.”
He said that Leadway is a solution based company, adding “We want to see your problems, your risks and we want to solve them.”
Speaking as one of the panelists, Executive Director, General Business, Leadway Assurance Limited, Ms. Adetola Adegbayi, urged Nigerians to embrace insurance, pointing out that insurance remains a key source to raise fund to carter for risks.
She stressed that Leadway Assurance, over the years, has being providing happiness to the insuring public through prompt payment of claims.