Against the dictates of the challenging economy, Universal Insurance Plc is surging towards the N20bn revenue for 2024 financial, and already secured up to first half of the year is N9.3bn premium revenue. Managing Director of Universal Insurance, Mr. Ben Ujoatuonu disclosed this at the 2023/2024 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Nigerian Association of Insurance and Pension Editors (NAIPE) hosted by Universal Insurance in Lagos.
According to Ujoatuonu, who was accompanied by the Company Secretary/ Corporate Affairs Manager, Mr Anthony Chinedu, all the company indices are showing positive signs that this would be attained with almost minimal chance of missing the mark in focus. Other highlights of the general insurer are the growth in assets from N11 bn in 2022 to 17 bn in 2023.
He said: “I was here last year to brief NAIPE on what we have done, our projections and what we intended to do. I am here today to let you know that all that we set out to achieve for the end of the year 2023, by the grace of God, I will say we achieved 98% of them. The branches we intended to open, were opened and I told you that we expected to end the year with a premium income of about N10 billion. However, we ended the year with a premium income of N9.3 bn with profit of over N530 million.
“This year 2024, we started out with very high expectations. We are also looking forward to opening more branches in 2024. In 2024, we are projecting to end the year with a premium income of about N20 bn. It may interest you to know that as at today, we are doing about N9.3 billion in premium income. We are very optimistic that we are going to achieve it before the end of 2024.
“Our asset will also increase from N11 bn to about N17.5 bn and our shareholders fund will increase from about N9 bn to N12 bn. So all the indices for us are showing positive signs and we will continue to sustain it.” To cap this achievement Ujoatuonu stated that the secured Universal partnership with NAIPE has provided a viable platform for the company and it has become a brand for customers to hook up to.
Up and until a couple of years ago “one of the challenges we had was people asking, “Is universal still existing? That was a question we were getting then. But today with your cooperation, the projections and what we’ve been able to do in Universal as a brand, people now want to be part of it. People now want to identify with our company and we are grateful to NAIPE for putting us out to the public.
“Due to NAIPE’s support, we are getting into partnerships with a lot of groups and in various states and we are very hopeful that they will create the level of value we are looking forward to.
“At the end of the day, we are meeting our claims obligations and stakeholders are happy. In April when we had the brokers evening, it was very clear that the NCRIB endorsed Universal Insurance as a company to deal with in terms of service delivery and claims payment. We are sustaining that level of relationship with brokers. And we are very hopeful that it will continue to add the level of value we expect.”
Ujoatuonu added that Universal Insurance admitted three new directors into the board of directors from various backgrounds and diverse experiences, stating: “We hope that their entrance into the board will also create the level of value that will expand our frontier in terms of business generation, among the rest of them. So we are on the move. And I believe that our partnership will continue to afford you the opportunity to dish out to the public what we’re cooking so that they will be able to feed from the abundance of good things coming out from Universal insurance. So we’re very grateful for this partnership. And we thank you for giving us the opportunity to come around.”
