Epetimehin to deliver inaugural lecture on micro-insurance

The first Professor of Insurance and Risk Management in Nigeria, Professor Festus Epetimehin, will today deliver the 6th Joseph Ayo Babalola University’s inaugural lecture.

The event which is slated for Oba Oladele Olashore Auditorium within the campus will start at 2.00pm.

Professor Epetimehin, the Dean College of Management Sciences at the university who is also a former Managing Director of Worldwide Insurance Company Limited, will be speaking on the topic; Small But Big: Micro Insurance and the Reduction of Social Risk of Poverty.

According to him, “Micro-insurance is considered as one of the most effective means of reducing the vulnerability of the poor from the impacts of disease, theft, violence, disability, fire and other hazards. Insurance protects against unexpected losses by pooling the resources of the many to compensate for the losses of the few, the more uncertain the event the more insurance becomes the most economical form of protection.”

He added that micro-insurance alleviates poverty by reducing the impact of hazard in rural areas. “It protects clients from risk, reduces micro-finance institution (MFI) loan default, earns additional income for the MFIs, and enhancing outreach and scalability. It is thus a useful complement to, rather than a substitute for, savings and credit in protecting the poor against risk and allows them to retain and develop financial, social and human capital in the long term,” he said.