To help develop micro-insurance in the country, the insurance regulator, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) would soon release the guidelines on micro insurance to help operators to develop their businesses along this line.

The guidelines are expected to strengthen the collaboration between insurers and micro-finance banks, helping traders and artisans and other low income earners to access loans underwritten by participating insurers.

A reliable source confirmed that the commission was putting finishing touches to the guidelines to ensure its release at the appropriate time. The guidelines, according to the source, would help deepen the retail market and take insurance to the grassroots across the country.

Meanwhile, the Managing Director Riskguard-Africa Nigeria Limited, Mr. Yemi Soladoye, has observed that the micro and retail insurance market in Nigeria would trigger a revolution in the industry.

He observed that most insurers sell products and not solution, he advised the operators to develop products that meet the needs of the target consumers.

The over 20 million customers of micro-finance banks form a good customer base for micro-insurance operators, even as a few operators have since keyed into the system, he added.

Speaking on the experiment of Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc (Mutual) with micro-finance bank, the Group Managing Director, Akin Ogunbiyi said the company has since surmounted the initial challenges in this regard and is currently reaping the rewards from this venture.

“We have Mutual Micro Finance Bank, which is into micro-insurance, and we have designed products and services that the common people in Nigerian can buy. We have products that cost as low as N50. Our products are affordable and meet the needs of these people. The regulator gave us the approval to invest in the bank and today the bank alone has given us over 65,000 individual policies.

“These are N100 and N50 policies hanging somewhere, which the insurance industry would not have captured as premium but we are very happy the micro finance bank is doing very well. It is through this we have been able to actually meet the objective of creating value and empowering the masses. It is a success story today in Lagos state,” he said.

“We approached a group of people who are selling jotters and bring them together in a cooperative unit; we empowered and encouraged them. Today they are accessing up to N10 million from the micro finance bank and they are paying back. The same applies to those selling textbooks and pure water.

“These are some of things that we have done to use insurance to create value, empower people to be able to buy our products and services. The beauty of this is that the informal sector is the symbol of integrity, there is no single default in repayment,” Ogunbiyi stressed.

Source: Thisday (by Nnamdi Duru)