Wednesday, 26 February 2014

Address delivered by the Editor Inspenonline at the 2013 Nigerian Insurance and Pension awards


ADDRESS BY THE EDITOR INSPENONLINE CHUKS UDO OKONTA AT THE INSPEN 2013 NIGERIAN INSURANCE AND PENSION AWARD, ON WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 26, AT MUSON CENTRE ONIKAN LAGOS.

·        The Chairman, Sir Sunny Nwosu (KSS)

·        The Special Guest of Honour, Barr. Laide Osijo, FIIN, FCIB

·        The Speaker

·        President of the NCRIB, Mr Ayodapo Shoderu, FIIN, FCIB

·        President of CIIN, Mr F.K Lawal, FIIN

·        The Awardees

·        Gentlemen of the Press

·        Ladies and gentlemen

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you all to this epoch making event which is the first of its kind in the insurance and pension industries. Inspen Nigerian Insurance and Pension Award, was designed to celebrate organisations and individuals who have helped to reshaped activities in the industry and by extension the economy.

The award, which started last year with the recognition of two distinguished individuals and an underwriting company, has now come to stay. This year, we decided to raise the bar by setting high standards to judge the operations of companies and impacts made by individuals in moving insurance and pension business forward. To achieve this, we gave the public the opportunity to select those to be celebrated by calling for votes. Having harmonised the votes which came from different parts of the country, we benchmarked the scores with the set standard to arrive at the winners we are celebrating today.

The award which is in seven categories had 28 nominees of which nine emerged winners.

 Inspen Nigerian Insurance and Pension award is poised at to enhance the image of the sectors, which over the years had suffered low patronage due to bad public perception.

In the one year of our operations, we have made great impact in showcasing the activities in the sectors to global audience. The results are evidenced, as foreign organisations with interest in both sectors regularly write to us to find out how they can do businesses with our local operators.

Just yesterday an organisation based in the United Kingdom that is presently exploring how to project the image of insurance, re-insurance and the pension in Nigeria, appointed us as its media partner in this regard.

Inspenonline had within a short period helped to upload thousands of photographs of events in the sector and news reports to the World Wide Web, a feat that was lacking in time past. The world as you know has become a global village and our relevance lies in the portability of our medium, considering the fact that many of us now possess sophisticated hi-phones through which we could access the web, anywhere we are. We have resolved to continually imprint the insurance and pension industry on these emerging media.

I could remember the rigours I went through trying to get pictures of events in the sectors, when I was working with my former employer. Today, we are changing the game, by ensuring that events in the sectors are not just reported, but displayed in pictorial.

It is funny to observe that even today; the Pictures of most Managing Directors are not available on the internet.  In the course of preparing for this event, we observed that the personal photographs of some Managing Directors are not on the internet. Also observed was that publishable logo of some organisations is not on the net. These issues are what we have decided to tackle to enable the industries enjoy global presence.

On the local front, we are reaching out to the youths who are future prospect for insurance and pension through the social media. The result is improving by the day as people call and mail us to seek clearance on issues.

We will like to use this medium to solicit the cooperation of all operators in both industries to take advantage of our services by giving us information and photographs of major events in their organisations.

We also solicit for advertorial supports to enable us meet our objectives and remain afloat.

Conclusion

Operators in insurance and pension sectors should pull out of the conservative habit exhibited by past practitioners which never helped their businesses. Though some companies are doing well in showcasing their brand, products and services, those that are yet to embrace the trend should wake and leverage all available information dissimilation channels to reach out to the public. For the bad perception affecting the sectors can only changed when the operators tell their stories. 

Once again I thank all for all for your love and attendance of this modest event which, by the grace of God and your cooperation will continue to be better by the year.

God bless.   

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