The Director General, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms. Arunma Oteh, Tuesday described the provision of micro-insurance products as critical for the country’s development.

Speaking in Abuja at the opening of the International Micro-insurance Conference organised by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in collaboration with its development partners, she said the insurance sector had often been instrumental to the growth of several economies in the world.

She said although such feat was yet to be seen in the country, the effective launch of micro-insurance and associated incentives would increase patronage and boost participation.

She said: “I think the focus on micro insurance is exciting because one of the challenges of our country is that not as many of the 167 million people participate in the economy and I believe that helping us to understand micro insurance better is important.

“What we want is for Nigerians to be able to participate in the economy and I believe that micro insurance is absolutely essential in that regard. If we do not focus on micro insurance, we will not transform our society.”

The SEC boss further said: “We believe that as SEC, the apex regulator of the Nigerian capital market, the transformation in the insurance sector is critical for the transformation of Nigeria. I don’t think that despite the fact that we have had the insurance industry existing for several years that people realise the importance of insurance to our lives, whether it is agriculture, whether it is housing, among others. The housing sector in America was strengthened because of mono line insurance, because of credit enhancement that insurance provides.”

According to her, insurance had become critical for better living conditions including health insurance, which permeates society.

Oteh also commended the Commissioner for Insurance/Chief Executive, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Mr. Fola Daniel, for the transformation in the industry. She said NAICOM’s compulsory insurance policy meant that premium would rise and become investible assets in the capital market.

“Those investible assets will enable us as the capital market to also contribute to transforming the economy. What we expect is that the results of these reforms that we are seeing will lead to us having insurance entities become very well recognised institutional investors. Some of the large institutional investors around the world are insurance companies and we are not seeing that yet in Nigeria, but it is going to happen,” she added.

Meanwhile, Daniel said NAICOM was prepared to provide necessary support for the insurance segment to succeed.

He said micro-insurance would create wealth, alleviate poverty, increase penetration of insurance, and to a larger extent bring insurance practitioners in the country to the same page as their counterparts in other jurisdictions.

Source: Thisday (by James Emejo)