The Group Managing Director, Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc, Dr. Akin Ogunbiyi, has said that insurance should be utilised as a means of developing investment in the country.
He said this during the public lecture to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the group in Lagos.
“It is worthy of note that with a little premium, insurance gives confidence that guarantees personal well-being and comfort as well as investments that engender the much-desired development and growth,” Ogunbiyi said.
He said that in May, this year in Tunis, Tunisia, Mutual Benefits achieved a landmark in the history of insurance in Nigeria as it was adjudged the most innovative insurance company in Africa in a keenly contested award ceremony sponsored by African Reinsurance Corporation.
The group managing director noted that Mutual’s entrepreneurial initiative of growing the insurance business made it a leader in Nigeria as well as the entire African continent.
The President of the African Export-Import Bank, Dr. Benedict Oramah, said insurance companies should emerge from their comfort zones to take up the opportunities that were being presented by the developments in the global and African markets.
He urged African insurance companies to begin to develop innovative products that would address specific needs of the continent.
“They should begin to provide credit insurance to African banks and other financial institutions to enable them to extend medium to long-term credit to African entities engaged in trade and trade projects,” he said.
According to him, this is an important means to ensuring improved access to credit by small and medium-scale enterprises that are the engine of growth of the continent.
Ogunbiyi also urged them to develop political risk insurance to attract foreign investments into the national economies as well as health and medical insurance products that cover persons who are affected by outbreak of pandemics
Source: Businessday
