Journalists across the country have been urged to educate Nigerians who wish to pick up insurance policies to critically study the contract proposal to ensure that its principles are strictly adhered to.
The Group Managing Director, Mutual Benefit Assurance Plc., Mr Akin Ogunbiyi who gave the admonition during the presentation of company’s newly launched 36 products to the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) in Lagos stated that insurance contract is just like every other legal contract, adding that such need to be critically studied before embarking on.
According to him, people often take insurance operators as not paying claims because they failed to understand the principle of the contract and subsequently not keeping to details therein which eventually made them to lose lump sum that are supposed to pay them as claims when risk occurs.
Ogunbiyi lamented that activities of illegal and fraudulent insurance practitioners have been a serious barrier to the growth of the sector.
He noted Nigerians often prefer to patronize quacks for insurance products and services even at a price higher than the price of the genuine policies.
He opined that quacks in insurance were able to progress in the sector in the past especially in motor vehicle (third party ) insurance because insurance products were not as accessible as it should be adding the “nobody will like to buy fake insurance if he knows where to buy original”.
He assured that Mutual Benefits has put in place various protection strategies aimed at protecting the new products from being attacked by fake operators.
Commenting on the new products, Ogunbiyi noted that the products were tailored to meet the needs of the people, to be available at their door steps especially those in the remote villages, even as they were designed in an affordable manner without the products losing their value.
He regretted that poverty, ignorance marginalization among others have made insurance business the most abandoned among other services thus making its contribution to the nations GDP still at abysmally less than 0.6 per cent.
Nigeria, the giant of Africa and 26th in world economy with population at the excess of 160 million need to have insurance as the propeller of its economy just as it is obtainable in the other developed countries of the world, he said.
