THE Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) has stated that insurance fosters empowerment and progress in the life of an individual, corporation or even a country.
The Director-General of the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), Mrs. Bola Odukale said this recently when she featured on the NTA Business Express programme where she spoke on “Ensuring Financial Stability.”
She highlighted the benefits and values of insurance and emphasised the need for Nigerians to embrace insurance.
Mrs. Odukale said, “When you talk about financial stability, it cannot be over-emphasized. When you have financial stability, it helps to foster progress; it helps to foster empowerment, whether in the life of an individual, corporation or even a country.
“Stability also gives room for growth wherever you are at any point in time; of course, this is what insurance serves to do. Insurance serves as a stability tool in several ways: First and foremost, it helps us to manage our risks because risk management is key to financial stability insurance can offer us against unforeseen circumstances—whether it’s death, natural disaster, accident or business disruptions”.
She explained that in the event of business disruption due to unforeseen circumstances, the business can continue if there was proper insurance in place, and noted that financial stability is key to business continuity.
The Director-General of NIA highlighted that insurance ensures business continuity, as it comes handy in the event of an organisation experiencing disruption due to damage to property, equipment or through natural disasters.
She said that insurance gives peace of mind, reduces financial stress when proper insurance policy is in place, and when the unforeseen happens, the policyholder would continue to move on with life while the insurer takes care of the issues that arose from the disaster or from the unforeseen circumstance.
Citing an example, Mrs. Odukale said, “Take the case of the death of a breadwinner in the family. Somebody who has four children in school; if you have bought the proper insurance product—life insurance product, education product, that can protect your family in the event of the demise of the breadwinner. The family, although they have suffered the loss of the breadwinner, of course, there will be some level of peace of mind because insurance will come in to take care of the children’s school fees from that point on. But when you don’t have any way to turn to, it becomes a double issue—you are thinking of how the children will continue in school, you are thinking of the breadwinner who has died. Insurance helps a great deal to ensure that there is stability and peace of mind from time to time”.
She emphasised that when the right insurance policy is taken, it also helps to reduce financial stress and financial pressure at every point in time, and businesses can continue to flourish after an unforeseen event had happened.
Speaking on religious belief and insurance acceptance, she said, “Of course, we are very religious people but it does not take away the fact that life has to continue even after the death of a breadwinner or anybody. For instance, what we do is continuous awareness because a lot of time the problem we have with the insuring public is that they do not understand the benefit of insurance.
“What we are doing is continuing to create awareness on the benefit of insurance—what you stand to gain when you have proper policy in place—whether it is life, property, business, etc., what benefit you stand to gain from time to time when unforeseen happens because we live in risks now and then; every point in time we are faced with different risks, there is need for us to be able to mitigate these risks when they happen, and when they will happen nobody knows. Things just happened and you have something that will cushion the effect of what has happened to you. We continue to provide awareness and education, and we try to put products together that would meet the needs of the people outside there”.
Mrs. Odukale said insurance can attend to virtually every aspect of life, including children in school, whose needs demand for resources to be put together for their future requirements, and insurance can help to attend to that.
“Of course, you can insure your vehicle as I have always said that every vehicle on the road must have insurance in place at the minimum of Third Party; you can do Comprehensive; there is Business Continuity Plan that we put in place; if you are transferring your good from one place to another, there is Good In Transit Insurance; we have General Disability Insurance; so in every area of our life, we have one product of insurance or another, one policy of insurance or another that speak to the risk that we face,” she further stated.
The Director-General of NIA pledged to continue to create awareness, and educate the people on the benefits of insurance.
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