Insurers tackle poverty with special products

Chuks Udo Okonta

Some insurance firms have risen to the challenge of tackling poverty through the evolvement of special products which provide succour for the less privilege and empower small business owners to remain afloat, Inspen can reveal.

Two underwriting firms that are transforming the industry operations through this initiative are Royal Exchange Assurance Plc and Mutual Benefits Assurances.

Managing Director, Royal Exchange General Insurance Olutayo Borokini, said the company has embarked on strategies to reach out to the poor, adding that the effort is to lift them out of poverty and contribute to economic development.

Head, Retail Business Royal Exchange, Mrs Temi Tope, said the firm has evolved policies to protect people who apply for micro-loans, adding that the initiative is to ensure that there is continuity in the economic stream.

She said: "We is poised to drive insurance to the next level and that is why we make a strategic move recently to set up the retail end of our business to actually focus on encouraging individuals to have policies that are personal to them.

"We believe that this is more pure way to drive insurance penetration. This is because if people have personal policy, it is easier to get them involved in corporate type when it gets to their businesses.

"On Micro insurance, we are firmly established on that and I can tell you that our company has policies designed to protect the people who are applying for loans and this is making sure that there is continuity in that economic stream.

"Also, we want to pay value to products so that at the end of the day, people can be assured there is products to take care of their needs. We are also looking at the Health area. We have currently fine-tuned products that can take care of people’s health. We believe that a healthy nation would be productive. Therefore, we are hoping that all these and many more, would make insurance reach every Nigerian."

Group Managing Director, Mutual Benefits Assurance plc, Akin Ogunbiyi, said the company has been able to lift many people out of poverty through its micro insurance initiative.

He said the firm has
products as low as N50 that suits the need of the public, stressing that through the firm's micro finance bank, it has been able to issues over 65,000 individual policies.

Ogunbiyi
noted that the company, today sells insurance to pure water sellers, book sellers, teachers, drivers and more through well structured microinsurance strategy.

He said: "Mutual micro finance bank, is into micro insurance and we have devised products and services that common people can actually buy. We have products as low as N50.

"Our products are affordable and it meets the needs of this people and of course we approach the micro insurance association of Nigeria. We discussed our idea with them and how we can use insurance to create value and empower the people, but all our plea and presentation never saw the light of the day.

"That was how we approached NAICOM, we made a presentation to them as to the objective we want to achieve using micro finance banks to drive micro insurance. As God will have it they gave us the approval to invest in the bank. Today the bank alone has given us about 65,000 individual policies.

"These are N10, N5 policies hanging somewhere, which the insurance industry would never 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. I remember, we have a group of people who are selling jotters. We approached them and put them in cooperative units, we empowered them as well encouraging them."

He noted that at the moment, the individuals who were grouped are accessing up to N10 million from the firm's micro finance bank and they are paying back. "The same applies to those selling textbooks, purewater, this is what we have done to use insurance to create value, empower them to be able to buy our products and services," he added.