Operators in the Nigerian insurance industry have been urged to embrace digital revolution to grow the industry’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Industry stakeholders, who spoke at the virtual 21st Adetunji Ogunkanmi Memorial Foundation Lecture, said low digital application contributed to the country’s low insurance penetration.
The Chairman, Lagos Building Investment, Hakeem Ogunniran, who chaired the occasion, described the insurance industry as a conservative one.
According to him, as matter of urgency, the sector should understand what is happening in the technology space and key into digital revolution.
He said, “I think insurance people always like to sit on the fence. You cannot do that any longer, but must create the storm of disruption for the needed penetration to happen.
“We must drop the toga of conservatism, understand the drivers of disruption because they are the drivers of growth, and any sector that does not key into this revolution will be left behind”.
The Chief Executive Officer, Africa Insuretech, Tunde Salako, who spoke on the topic ‘Insurance sector ready for innovative disruptors’, said insuretech was fast evolving, with the capacity to unleash new value chains, new markets, and massive opportunities to deepen insurance penetration.
The Chairman, Board of Trustees, Adetunji Akanji Ogunkanmi Foundation, Mrs Funmilayo Babington-Ashaye, in her welcome remarks, said the programme was another opportunity “to make out time to remember and celebrate a dear friend, a visionary, a true and down-to-earth gentleman, who despite having a short sojourn on this earth, gave so much that the impact still reverberates today, 21 years after”.
Babington-Ashaye, who is also the managing director of Risk Analyst Insurance Broker Limited, said, “As a visionary leader, Tunji’s ideals are still very relevant today, two decades after his untimely exit”.
She said the foundation had remained consistent with the various editions “as if Tunji saw the future, having started Cornerstone Insurance Plc, with the clear intention of disrupting the status quo, to change the way insurance business was being practised at the time, and so championed the needed change”.