Okonjo-Iweala advocates massive education of Nigeria’s insurance policymakers for deep penetration

Former Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has called for a massive education of insurance policy makers in the country to achieve deep insurance penetration among the populace.

Okonjo-Iweala said on Friday in Busan, South Korea, on the sideline of the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB), that insurance penetration in Africa and Nigeria in particular was very low.

“As the world is experiencing so much uncertainties and a lot of volatility in the economy, people really need to think more deeply about insurance and how they can help protect themselves and their families, even their countries against these risks.”

She said insurance penetration in Africa was as low as three per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and about 0.3 per cent of GDP in Nigeria, stressing the need for proper enlightenment and education of the populace.

“We really need to move forward ; there is a lot of opportunities, so we need massive education and insurance companies must take some responsibilities by working with government in this direction.

“We should set ourselves some targets; we were begining to do that earlier on when we were in government; to see if we could really, by 2020, 2025, 2030, set targets of having insurance penetrate deeply, ” she said.

Okonjo-Iweala, who is the Chairperson of the Board of African Risk Capacity (ARC) initiative, congratulated Nigeria for signing the ARC Memorandum of Understanding because it was another form of weather-based insurance.

She said the pact was good and formed part of the framework for moving the country in the right direction, “so massive education of the population of policy makers on insurance is what we need to do”.