Yemisi Izuora
The Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) on Thursday elected Tope Smart as the new chairman of the association at the 47th annual general meeting of the association in Lagos.
Outgoing chairman, Eddie Efekoha at the AGM, anticipates that the association’s Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) initiative and other strategic efforts will increase insurance uptake by the public.
According to him, The industry was able to grow its volume of business by 15 percent from N315.96billion to stand at N363billion in 2017.
Efekoha, who also doubles as managing director of Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc maintained that the industry operators in collaboration with the National Insurance commission (NAICOM) have embarked on various initiative to deepen insurance penetration. These initiatives according to him, included, the insurance industry roadmap; financial inclusion; micro insurance; bancassurance and the insurance industry rebranding project.
He thanked the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) and other professional bodies for their collaboration and immeasurable support during the past two years of as chairman.
In his acceptance speech, the newly sworn chairman promised to do everything humanly possible to lift the association forward.
Mr Smart noted that although the task is challenging but assured that he will give it his best shot.
He said his tenure is going to leverage on his experience as treasury and support of past chairmen and members to take the association to the next level.
On collaboration he said: ” I will collaborate with NAICOM, NCRIB, ILAN and other agencies to move out great association forward. Protection of members company interest is paramount to me and my administration slogan is “NIA first and by extension Insurance First”. He however promised to unfold his agenda at the inauguration.
The association also elected the group managing director of Cornerstone Insurance Plc, Ganiyu Musa as its deputy chairman.
While the MD/CEO of Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc, Segun Omosehin; MD/CEO of AIICO Insurance Plc, Edwin Igbiti and MD/CEO Capital Express Assurance, Bola Odukale were all elected into the Governing Council of the association.