By Rosemary Iwunze
The insurance industry contributed N349.01 billion to the economy in 2024 representing an increase of 14.4 per cent, Year-on-Year, YoY from N305.02 billion recorded in 2023.
Industry experts attributed the growth to increased insurance awareness, as well as significant interest in general insurance business in recent times.
The fourth quarter, Q4’24, Nigerian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report, measured at 2010 Constant Basic Prices revealed a steady rise in the industry contribution to GDP with the Q4’24 increasing by 17.1 per cent to N75.5 billion from N64.5 billion recorded in Q4’23.
In Q3’24, insurance contribution rose to N91.3 billion from N76.2 billion, in Q2’24, it went up to N97.5 billion from N86.4 billion, and in Q1’24, the figure grew to N97.5 billion from N78.3 billion.
Speaking on the development, immediate past President of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, CIIN, Mr. Edwin Igbiti, said that there is increased awareness and acceptance of insurance in the country.
He stated: “The industry has been recording double digits growth and most of it is attributed to the growth in energy insurance which has significantly nudged up general insurance business.
“Although, we are still scratching the surface in terms of insurance penetration due to the huge penetration gap, however, this means that there is room for improvement.
“However, a sense of awareness has started coming in and people are beginning to take insurance more seriously, an indication that the people are becoming more insurance conscious.”
Also speaking on insurance perception in the country, Director General of Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), Mrs. Bola Odukale, stated that there must be continuous insurance awareness creation across the country to eliminate the prevailing negative perception about insurance.
She stated: “Image making is part of the business of insurance especially for an industry like ours that everybody claims much of the time that they don’t know much about. We keep hearing things like ‘we don’t know anything about insurance’ and the feedback is always like everybody seems to lack knowledge of insurance in its entirety. Everybody seems to be in the dark about insurance or what insurance is all about and this has been a recurrent decimal as far as the trajectory of the industry is concerned.
“So what that says to me is that there must be continuous engagement, we must continuously put ourselves in the face of the people. Nobody will say they don’t know what the banks do. Lot of people doesn’t claim the kind of ignorance about the banking sector like they claim about the insurance sector.”
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