The chairman of board of Coronation Insurance Plc, Mutiu Sunmonu, has announced the bancassurance deal reached between the insurer and Access Bank. This allows the insurer to offer all their underwriting policies to the bank’s customers in all branches of the bank, representing a partnership that feeds mutual benefits and a key partnership for the Nigerian insurance industry.
Sunmonu disclosed this at a webinar on “Managing Risks That Keep CEOs Up At Night,” in Lagos, and stated that the partnership will redefine how insurance services are delivered to corporate customers. Besides, he said boosters of the deal are the insurer’s impressive digital integration and maturity of the organisation and the size of investment it has made in scaling its digital maturity over the last decade. Second, is the corporate governance and financial capacity and last, talent and potentials within the organisation.
The impressive corporate credentials of Coronation Insurance Sunmonu stated, was not a surprise, “it only reflects what we have come to expect from any organisation affiliated to Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede and Herbert.”
The group managing director/chief executive officer of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, said the bank sealed the deal with the expectation that it’s going to be more than a “bank promise” to its customers, where they will “have the best underwriting and claims experiences. We believe that it is possible that with a bancassurance partner in the company like Coronation Insurance, that those things will be achieved.” He emphasised that Coronation Insurance will distance itself from the slow and sluggish response to claims settlement which is prevalent with many insurance companies.
Wigwe said there were several background checks conducted by the bank and Coronation Insurance ticked as the fastest-growing corporate risk underwriter in the last decade and, one of the top three most capitalised insurance companies in Nigeria. Also in the background and subsisting, is Wigwe’s assertion that Wapic Insurance, now Coronation Insurance, was part of Access Bank ecosystem, a boost to their new joint platform. A good take home from that relationship his reminiscence captured, was the “fond memories of the spin off when our shareholders received their dividends after that particular spin off.”
He said the new phase of partnership with Coronation resonates with big banks across the globe. He explains: “In pursuit of our goal of being more than a bank to our esteemed customers, it has come to our notice that the largest banks across the globe with similar ambitions as ours have bancassurance partners who offer their services directly or indirectly through the bank.”
The checks made by the bank, he stated, had to match a couple of identifiers; “the first among them is the underwriters speed of response to customers, and the second, is the financial strength and capitalisation base of the underwriter.”
Wigwe said the bank went to that length because of its customers interest. He bares his mind: “With the strong interest of our customers in mind, Access Bank considered all of these qualities and found Coronation Insurance to be leading within the various categories.”
