Yemisi Izuora
Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu has highlighted the importance of information and communications technology (ICT) tools in driving the insurance market online platform, recently introduced by Pinet Informatics, a pioneer Internet Service Provider (ISP).
The minister listed the importance of ICT tools, while launching the insurance market online platform, known as insurancemarket.ng, at the eInsurance Conference organised by Pinet Infirmatics in Lagos.
He called on all stakeholders in the insurance industry to leverage on ICT to grow the potentials of the Nigerian insurance industry, which he said has not been fully harnessed.
The minister, while delivering a keynote address titled, ‘Driving Insurance Penetration With Information and Communications Technology, noted that the nation’s insurance sector, which provides support to the financial institutions has not been fully explored, saying “the Insurance sector despite being a major driver of business growth that provides a critical support system to the financial market, has not fared well given the current size of the Nigerian economy and population”.
“Information available to me indicates that there are less than 1.5 million insurance policyholders, representing a paltry 0.9 per of a population of well over 170 million citizens. Similarly, the gross premium of the sector is said to be less than N500 billion, implying that the sector contributes less than 1per cent to national GDP,” Shittu said, while advising the stakeholders to fully embrace technology to further deepen insurance penetration in the country.