By JONAH NWOKPOKU

FBN Life, the insurance arm of First Bank of Nigeria Plc has said that its products offerings will help in increasing insurance penetration in the country by at least two per cent.

Managing Director of FBN Life, Mr. Valentine Ojumah stated this while addressing news men during a product media fair in Lagos.

He said that FBN Life has been confronting the challenges of poor insurance penetration and hopes that its contribution to the insurance sector will help to move the penetration level from 0.5 per cent to over five per cent, in the next five years.

“When we started, there was no structure to support the system but we have over 100, 000 policy holders, making FBN life one of the most reliable insurance companies in the country.

“We have six individual life products. With that, in another five years, we will move from 0.5 to two per cent penetration in insurance,” he said.

“We have made tremendous progress within three years, despite the fact that the insurance industry in Nigeria is fragmented. It has low capacity and penetration. But these are the challenges we are coming together to confront. We have moved from paying zero claims to over N900 million. We are the only brand new registered insurance company that has grown to become number four in specialist life insurance,” he added.

He explained that FBN Life declared profit to shareholders and in the next couple of months would be going into general insurance business.

Speaking further, Head of Alternative Distribution, Ayodeji Bankole said that alternative distribution has been another way of reaching customers to accept insurance products.

He said, “If FBN Life can get at least 20 per cent of First Bank customers to subscribe to insurance, they would have made significant progress in achieving better penetration.”

On group life insurance, he said, “It is sold basically to corporate organisations. It is coming from the background of the government policy that every organisation with a minimum of five employees should have an insurance cover.”

This, he said, was to protect the dependents’ of the employees from undue suffering in event of eventuality,” noting that, “It is necessary to join hands and promote this law so that other organisations would key into it.”