Hiers Insurance and Hiers Life were officially launched 1st June 2021 in Lagos state, Nigeria, though they have been operating for about 7 months now. In attendance was the governor of Lagos state, Mr Sanwo Olu, Mr Tony Elumelu the chairman of Heirs Holding, bank CEOs and major industry players.
Elumelu delivering his keynote stated that the insurance industry in Nigeria is not actually functioning at its best potential considering the fact that Nigeria is the biggest economy in Africa and yet insurance has a very minimal contribution to the country’s GDP. He cited the case of South Africa, Europe and America were most of the big companies were insurance companies who even own banks too.
He said that the heirs insurance and heirs life were coming to upgrade the insurance industry as he opined that prosperity should be democratized. Bragging on their track record in United Bank of Africa, Heirs Holding, Transcorp and other market interests, he assured the audience that it was not just talks. The two new Heirs are coming to make insurance accessible, affordable and digitalized.
The governor who also gave a keynote address was happy and optimistic of the two new heirs introduction to the market to reposition and rebrand the industry. He stated that there was a limit to what government could do in employment, no matter how hard it tried, and so it had the responsibility of encouraging the private sector.
Our hope is that these new outfits will be able to surmount the challenges like insecurity and economic hardship that hinders economic and social ventures on the part of the citizens.
The challenges in question are of a boomeranging nature, in the sense that people may not want to venture into business because of issues of insecurity and economic downturn stated above, but it is these very reasons that call for insurance, so a business man is willing to invest his cash and resources knowing that if any negative external force like burglary or cargo accident should occur, the insurance company is there to cushion such effects.
If this is so, why then is there a low patronage of insurance facilities? One ready answer is low literacy about insurance, a situation that cuts across the educated civil servant and the uneducated trader. Also, there is the case of high cost of insurance which scares people away. Good a thing that Heirs has promised to make insurance affordable, it must now educate and advertise aggressively.
