Thursday 12 September 2013

Insurers need new products to tap $30m agric investment - CBN


Chuks Udo Okonta


For insurers to harness the opportunities to be provided by the $30 million earmarked for the Nigerian Incentive Based Risk Management System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) they must evolve new products, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Tunde Lemo, has said.  

He disclosed this at an event in Ibadan, adding that NIRSAL provides opportunities for the insurance companies and that it is a dynamic, holistic approach that tackles both agricultural value chain and the agricultural financing of value chain.

He said: “The CBN initiative of the Nigerian Incentive Based Risk Management System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) provides opportunities for the insurance companies. NIRSAL is a dynamic, holistic approach that tackles both agricultural value chain and the agricultural financing of value chain. NIRSAL is built on five pillars namely; risk sharing facilities, insurance facilities, technical facilities, holistic bank rating merchants and bank incentives mechanism.

“The primary goal of the insurance facilities is to expand insurance product for agricultural lending from the current coverage to new products such as weather index insurance, new variants of pest and diseases insurance. The sum of USD 30 million will be invested by the CBN.”

He called on the industry’s practitioners to tackle the challenges clogging the wheel of the sector, and identified the challenges to be, general apathy towards insurance, the unwholesome practices of some insurance practitioners, slow pace of development of industry portal, unattractive remuneration of agents, dearth of adequate manpower and delays in enacting of bills.

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