I joined the insurance industry mainly by accident because I sincerely wanted to read Economics, but I found myself in insurance. I had just left secondary school and I went to work for obvious reasons. Then, I felt I could secure an appointment with an insurance company. I experienced an incident in a bank that made me tell myself that working in a bank was a no-go area. I made up my mind not to work in a bank and that was how I found myself in insurance till this day. That was as far back as the 1980s.
The perception was (like) a class. We knew ourselves in the sense that in Broad Street, Marina, Lagos, that was where the concentration of insurance companies was, and that made us an enclosure. Then, I started doing the (insurance) examinations and we could count the number of those who qualified and understood where they were. They were like mentors, and that was how insurance was back then.
There are a lot of positive changes that have come on board. One thing I have seen over the years is that then, we were seriously conservative because everybody monitored one another. We formed the likes of Cornerstone (Insurance Plc), founded by Tunji Ogunkanmi.
Others also put life into insurance. They changed the fortune of insurance and brought insurance out as a business. They also overdid it because the insurance economy is different from the banking (economy). They brought in the views of a banker and that brought fortune to insurance because people were leaving the traditional insurance (system) to join this group. That is one of the good things that have happened to insurance.
The role can be described as being a supervisor. And one cannot go beyond that role without knowing the major reason why the CIIN was set up. The CIIN is charged with the general duty of determining the standard of knowledge and skill to be attained by a person seeking to become a regular member of the insurance profession. This standard must be well-guided and fine-tuned as circumstances permit it. This is an institute that was founded in 1959 before it became chartered in 1960, and being chartered, you tend to be affiliated with the Chartered Insurance Institute of London. Therefore, being chartered means we are guided by the law on the roles of the chairman or the president. It is mainly to guide the affairs of the institute.
As an institute, we work with various committees that the council has formed. The council advises one to make decisions to improve the institute. That has been my major role in the institute.
One major achievement is ensuring that our examination is standard. That is a plus because it is a core reason for setting up the institute. We have also engaged ourselves by trying to widen the scope of the examination. We now have centres beyond Nigeria’s borders such as Sierra Leone, Uganda, Liberia and Canada, among others. We ensure that the best and most efficient manpower is given to the market. We also give out journals that keep our professionals abreast of the trending issues in the market. We have also ensured that there is an outlook where we have various professional conferences that come up during my tenure, which have been upgraded.
The professionals that turned up during the last conference were over 500. Various seminars and courses have also been held on related matters. In recent times, we have adopted and updated technology devices that also have been introduced to practitioners in the market. A bespoke state-of-the-art information technology infrastructure has been delivered to the secretariat. Being the mother of all insurance business operators, the insurance consultative platform has been in top gear to harmonise, corroborate and ensure that we all speak with one voice.
In addition, quizzes have been organised among schools in Nigeria; another one is coming soon in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Through this, we give gifts to students such as laptops to ensure that we catch them young. This also helps to build their interest. Besides, we ensure that we have mentorship as career lectures have been delivered in secondary schools in Lagos.
We also recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Actuarial Science and Insurance Students Association in all tertiary institutions to give them support, both intellectually and financially. Then, we have adopted secondary schools where we teach insurance as a subject. I believe this is the time to preach insurance to the young ones and other financial stakeholders. Furthermore, we meet with Small and Medium Enterprise owners and preach insurance to them such as the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, among others.
Creating awareness is what we are working on. We also want to ensure that the integrity of our exams is not compromised. We have also been distributing books to secondary schools. As regards our Corporate Social Responsibility, we have provided a transformer in the street where our secretariat is located and that has helped. In one way or the other, we supported the healthcare provision that the National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria presented to the care personnel that the then President (Muhammadu Buhari) recognised as one of the things that insurance has done.
The major challenge we encounter is how to catch them young because I realise that succession is one of the difficulties the market is facing. Besides, most of our positions are tenured. Therefore, it should be with a conscious mind that every company ensures that it has a succession plan. It should be embedded in the administration. That is why technology is of the essence. Tech is something that we must embrace because it is the future of insurance.
Another challenge is that our council is aging. I am the 51st president and I will be handing over to the 52nd president of the institute in July next year (2024). So, we must get young and dynamic people into the council because we need to reinvent ourselves as an institute. These days, most professionals are not showing interest and we need to encourage them to show interest to guarantee our future.
I just want to say I give all the glory to God because I am one of the fortunate ones in the industry. I found myself in AIICO in 1992 as a middle-level manager and I climbed the ladder and got to the peak. In 2013, I became the MD of AIICO. I retired from AIICO in 2019 and decided to go to Niger Insurance because when I joined the insurance industry in the 1980s, the only two companies I would love to work with were NICON and Niger. They had the highest ranking in terms of professionals and had the input of the government in charge.
NICON was one of the biggest (insurance companies) in the sense that 50 per cent of the income in the industry belongs to NICON. Niger also had that tendency and everybody wanted to work in those two companies. That was the phobia when I was being contacted in 2019 by Niger. I felt it was a chance, and though they had challenges, I knew I could surmount them.
In both AIICO and Niger, I learnt how to run a business successfully and how not to run a business. That is what I brought to the secretariat. Currently, I know if one breaches a principle, one will pay for it. I have also come to understand that trust is good, but control is better. Hence, I now realised that in everything we do, we must subject ourselves to control.
Technically and economically, the business of insurance is a catalyst. If one values an asset, one will insure that asset, and when inflation arises, it will affect the value (of that asset) drastically. Therefore, one of the major problems clients are facing concerning insurance is the adequacy of their values, submission, and the principle of insurance that if you do not insure adequately, you will get penalised when there is a total loss.
Indirectly, the underwriters are also facing (this challenge) and adequate premium is also not being collected. This means that if you do not have adequate premiums, you will not be in a position to make adequate reserves against the loss.
The major consumption of our expenses is now diesel or petrol. As the cost is rising, the production cost is also rising. Consequently, management expenses are also up and we will not run away from the demands of employees (regarding remuneration) when they come. This means that what affects the economy also affects insurance adversely. Therefore, modern management will have to put on their thinking cap and move with the train of the economy. Our modelling concept has to change, and that also affects our capitalisation because we check when we are thinking of the inflation rate.
I will simply say that the insurance industry in Nigeria still has a long way to go compared to those in the advanced world. However, the awareness has come. Once knowledge has been gathered, we can know that we just have to adapt while we need to collaborate and live our core values.
As an institute, we must live our core values, which include membership satisfaction, knowledge, trust and efficiency. If knowledge can be upscale and trust is a cardinal point, as an insurer comes into the team, efficiency will run its course and technology efficiency will need to be done. I will say the sky is the limit for insurance practitioners.
I come from a humble home. I am the second child of seven children. My parents were relatively managing. That was why I decided to work early to keep the family. Growing up, my ambition was to help my family because I knew they actually did not have much financial capacity. They were struggling and my passion or motivation then was to turn my family fortunes around. To be sincere, how it happened, I did not know. But I kept on managing and I ensured that I did not lose sight of that passion.
I was born and raised in Lagos. I recall that there was a year that my parents were ejected from our home. Our belongings were packed out. It was a traumatic moment in my life, because I knew that would not end. Immediately, we secured another apartment because of the relationship we had in that neighbourhood. It was a community back then because every child was trained by everyone. When other parents beat us, we just took it like that because we all lived together as a community without big fences to demarcate our homes.
As we kept managing in our new rented home, I told myself that I would buy that house from its owner. But now, I cannot live in that territory again. That is to tell you how God has been merciful. That was my humble beginning. I am still getting in touch with those I used to play ball with. I was a good footballer while I was growing up. As we were playing together then, I never knew there would be money involved. If I had known then, I would have stayed put and ensured that I made it to a professional level. We just played for small clubs here and there.
I also played a little table tennis. We (my classmates and I) are still meeting and we have a platform where we communicate all over the world. It has been a joyful journey and I will say I am one of the fortunate ones. Notwithstanding the many things that I have faced, I am still feeling very strong. I will say I had a joyful upbringing, just dynamic in Lagos, which is a joyful place to be.
One of them is showing interest, but I am not looking for a way to get them attached, or more or less get them attached to an insurance company. I want one of them to be an insurer, but I don’t want to force any of them.
