If they are successful, it would bring their market up to $6.4 billion in 4 years.
The most populated country of Africa, Nigeria, has just declared its latest insurance news, which includes intentions to increase its marketplace by more than three times its current value, and that it will accomplish this goal by 2017.
The hope is to be able to achieve this target by improving the industry’s reputation in the nation.
This insurance news announcement was made by the country’s insurance commissioner, Daniel Fola. He explained that the people of his country simply don’t trust the industry. He added that because of this, “We’ve done a considerable amount of housekeeping to make sure the companies respect the rules.”
According to this insurance news, by 2017, the marketplace in Nigeria will be worth 1 trillion naira.
At this level (the equivalent to $6.4 billion), it would represent 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). This would be considerable insurance news, as at the moment, the marketplace represents 1 percent of the GDP, and is worth approximately 300 billion naira (approximately $1,920,000).
The figures presented by Fola would also indicate that to reach the insurance news target for 2017, then the penetration of coverage would need to rise to 22.5 percent of the insurable population. Currently, only 10 percent of the insurable population actually has coverage.
He also explained the predictions for various coverage sectors. For instance, the compulsory motor vehicle policies – which represent the majority of the contracts that currently exist in the country – would likely remain at about 10 percent by the deadline. Seven percent of coverage will be represented by life policies, and 3 percent would come from general business protection. Finally, coverage for petroleum companies would make up 2.5 percent.
It is expected, said Fola, that gas and oil enterprises will continue their behavior of contracting international insurers to provide coverage for Nigerian operations. This is not big insurance news as the local insurers have only a limited capacity. Nigeria is currently the largest producer of oil in Africa. According to Bloomberg data, the country put out approximately 1.9 million barrels per day of crude in December 2012.