Insurance Gross Premium Rises By N443.3bn

Gross premium insurance in Nigeria has experienced significant growth within the last eight years, recording an increase of N443.3 billion between 2015 and end of 2022.

From N282.9 billion in 2015, the figure rose to N726 billion in 2022, a modest 15 per cent increase.

This was as the Commissioner for Insurance, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Olorunda Sunday Thomas, has threatened to go after companies violating its regulatory intervention regarding Third Party Insurance.

Thomas said the issue of N15,000 third party insurance has come to stay, adding that, “The system, the economy is adjusting to it. What is permanent is change and what is also most resistant is change.”

Total assets of the insurance industry has also risen from N917 billion to over N2 trillion within the same period, according to the assistant director in corporate strategy and special duties at NAICOM, Usman Jankara.

Dr Jankara also said life premium and annual growth were both in a growth trajectory, with insurance penetration now at 0.4 per cent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and an increase in insurance density to 1.5 per cent.

Claims payout in 2014 also rose from N99.1 billion in 2014 to N318.1 billion in 2021, according to Jakara’s paper presentation at a retreat for journalists in Akwa Ibom State, with the theme, ‘Improving Stakeholders Perception 2023 and Beyond’.