The Director General of Nigerian Insurers Association, (NIA) Mrs. Bola Odukale, has called for enhanced approach to simplify the financial service of insurance so that the unabated haze occupying a space between the public and the market will fade away on the heels of combined efforts of the insurance market and the media.
Odukale impressed for this route when the executive members of the Nigerian Association of Insurance and Pension Editors (NAIPE) paid a courtesy visit to her office at the NIA head office in Lagos.
The NIA DG said the insurance practitioners have obligation to always put themselves in the face of the people through collaboration with the media. She clears, “Image making is part of the business of insurance especially for an industry like ours that everybody claims much of the time that they don’t know much about. We keep hearing things like ‘we don’t know anything about insurance’ and the feedback is always like everybody seems to lack knowledge of insurance in its entirety. Everybody seems to be in the dark about insurance or what insurance is all about and this has been a recurrent decimal as far as the trajectory of the industry is concerned.
“So what that says to me is that there must be continuous engagement, we must continuously put ourselves in the face of the people. Nobody will say they don’t know what the banks do. Lot of people doesn’t claim the kind of ignorance about the banking sector like they claim about the insurance sector. Hence, the fact remains that the media is part of us and the image maker of the industry. Collectively as an industry, you remain the image maker of our industry. You are a vital part of us as far as this industry is concerned, hence matters with you cannot be taken with levity and I want to assure you that we are going to be working together,” she elucidated.
She added that “What that means is that we still have a lot of work to do and we must continuously ensure that we do the right thing, continuously projecting our industry out there and in a very bright light. I am saying that to reemphasize the fact that you are key to us, and we are also willing to work together with you.”
On the third party motor insurance awareness campaign, Odukale said: “The third party awareness is going to be sustained for the long haul because this is not about third party but about insurance. We are bringing insurance awareness closer to the people, even though we are focusing on third party. It is still talking about insurance, letting people know that there is something called insurance. So it is not a conversation that we are just going to end in February, it is something we intend to push further and further. Talking about this third party has shown that a lot of awareness creation is required. So we will work with you over the long haul, so that we sustain the tempo.”
She however appealed to insurance journalists to collaborate with the industry to project the sector in a positive light and protect the industry so that reports don’t end up exfoliating needed insurance embrace. According to her the peel off impacts negatively on a better perspective of the industry.
Meanwhile, the Chairperson of NAIPE, Mrs. Nkechi Naeche-Esezobor while making her presentation charged insurance operators to carry out regular briefing with the media to keep the journalists abreast with developments in the industry.
She said: “The NIA can collaborate with the media on awareness creation through quarterly briefings on developments in the sector. Through the quarterly briefings, the media will be aware of developments in the sector and adequately push out the message to the public.”
