NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

A civil society organisation, Transparent Protection Limited (TPL), on Monday, in Abuja, raised the alarm that over 70 percent of micro enterprises in the country did not have any form of insurance.

To that end, it called on appropriate bodies to quickly introduce rules for online insurance and also to forge a workable strategy relationship with Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) for online insurance policyholders’ protection.

The programme manager of the group, Godson Ibekwe-Umelo, while speaking on ways to enhance economic growth through insurance awareness in the country, wondered how the expected revolution in the insurance sector could generate expected outcomes in the absence of a proper framework for protecting the interest of policyholders.

He insisted on the urgent need to develop appropriate legal framework for protecting online policyholders, noting that the organisation would continue to employ awareness creation and advocacy to push for the right things to be done to grow the sector.

The programme officer urged members of the National Assembly to quickly pass the insurance bill so as to move the sector forward.

According to him, the group was bothered that it could not get convincing information concerning the extent the bill had gone at the parliament.

He said, “Pursuant to its mandate of promoting insurance development through awareness creation and strengthening transparency in the insurance sector, TPL has initiated partnership with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to map and build capacities of micro and small enterprises in Nigeria in the areas of micro insurance and risk management.

“Micro-insurance is already working and lifting many out of poverty in many climes, especially those with relative huge population like India, Bangladesh and Malaysia. Micro-insurance has potential for growing the real sector in Nigeria if well coordinated. This is because the cheapest insurance policy with lowest premium rate can translate to trillions of Naira by reason of large number.”