Dangote Tasks Insurers On Knowledge Acquisition, Value Addition To Clients’ Businesses

Dangote

The President of Dangote Group of Companies, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has tasked insurance practitioners in Nigeria to spare time to acquire the prevailing technical knowledge of their various clients’ businesses.

He said such knowledge acquisition would enable them to keep abreast with the business challenges of their clients and enhance their ability to enlighten or advice their clients on necessary safety measures to implement.

Alhaji Dangote spoke at the “First interactive session with major consumers of insurance products and services”, organised by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in Lagos, as part of the Commission’s enlightenment campaign on insurance nationwide.

Dangote who was represented by the  Chief Risk and Insurance Officer, Dangote Industries, Adenike Fajemirokun, maintained that insurance operators should add value to their clients businesses rather than just focussing on premium collection from every insurance contract without thinking about how to reduce their clients’ risk exposure.

He noted that because of lack of adequate knowledge of the risk they underwrite, the insureds are often exposed to  unnecessary risks, adding that this is compounded by the fact that in the event of the risk insured,   insurers  take long time before paying claims.

Further, he alleged that some insurance firms were still owing his company  claims worth over N400 million since 2012 despite the fact that the company has not defaulted in payment of premiums.

The Commissioner for Insurance, Mohammed Kari, assured that NAICOM as part of its primary mandate, will ensure the protection of consumers of insurance products and services whether as corporate entity or individual.

He said: “Our gathering here today is indeed, one of the steps being taken by the Commission towards achieving that mandate. The timing for this session was carefully chosen and considered appropriate in view of current changes in the public sector environment, especially with the Executive Order on Ease of Doing Business issued to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government.  Another reason is the yearnings shown by you, the consumers, for better services from insurance institutions, among others.

“We believe the principles Ease of Doing business Order should permeate through the value chain of our sectoral service providers. We happily noted that at the same time, insurance institutions have also engaged themselves on the need for them to come up with a service level agreements, detailing how they would improve service delivery  above what the law provide especially on timelines of task completion.

” I am happy to note here that they have so far agreed to shorten some tasks completion time of their major activities on the basis of self regulation and market agreements, first between themselves and secondly between them and you the consumers of their services.

“I assure you that any company found in default shall be compelled to do the needful.  It is pertinent to inform you that stakeholder engagements like this will, going forward, form a major avenue of interactions with consumers.”