Yemisi Izuora
Leadway Assurance has disclosed plans to invest in artificial intelligence (AI), data-driven and research-oriented initiatives to drive the company’s operations in 2023 to upscale its stake in Nigeria’s insurance industry.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, MD/CEO, of the firm, Tunde Hassan-Odukale, the decision is because it has been projected that the Nigerian and global business climates are likely to experience significant debilitating micro and macroeconomic dynamics, ranging from inflationary cost pressures, exchange rate vagaries and disrupting talent attrition.
Hassan-Odukale made this revelation in his New Year strategic welcome message to all stakeholders.
“As the business environment evolves, the speed of change being driven by technology will never be slower. This obviously has profound implications for business. Therefore, we will be deploying more data-driven and research-oriented initiatives, adopting data and artificial intelligence practices for improved processes and quick decision-making to promote immersive and exceptional customer experience. Indeed, part of our emphasis this year is to significantly enhance our operational excellence with improvements in our technology use”, he said.
“Also, in this new year and future years, we are committed to strengthening our risk management strategies and technical expertise to ensure such risks are properly identified, assessed, and proactively mitigated.”
“I am confident that the future holds immense opportunities for all our businesses, given the Government’s huge investment in public infrastructure and imminent changes in the economy. Leadway as an organisation will continue to tap into these emerging opportunities and pursue its strategic goal of being ‘the most dominant insurance company in Nigeria’, in revenue and profit market share, within the corporate and retail market segments”, he added.
Tunde reiterated that the organisation cannot achieve these towering objectives without a firm commitment to provide a world-class customer experience consistently. He therefore charged his team to be more customer-centric in improving Leadway’s customers’ experience positively at every touch point in our customer service value chain.”
According to an expert’s report via the V7 Labs (a leading Artificial Intelligence and software company) on AI’s potential impact in the insurance industry, “Some of the emerging AI use cases for auto insurance include predictive cost analytics for claims”; as well as leveraging machine learning techniques and data science to estimate the average claims cost per different customer segments to adjust premiums respectively and to manage cash flow better”.
Experts also cite McKinsey’s report that estimates that investments in artificial intelligence can unlock the realisation of up to $1.1 trillion in potential annual value for the global insurance industry..
