*As Heirs General Drives Penetration With Affordable Products
From left: Executive Director, Technical, Heirs General Insurance, Japhet Duru and Managing Director/CEO Heirs Life Insurance Company Limited, Mr. Niyi Onifade, at the just concluded 48th Conference of African Insurance Organisation (AIO) Conference, held in Nairob, Kenya.
BY NKECHI NAECHE-ESEZOBOR–The Managing Director/CEO Heirs Life Insurance Company Limited, Mr. Niyi Onifade, has said that retail space is key to increasing insurance industry profitability.
According to him insurance operators can do more in the area of profit if they put in more resources and invest in technology.
The life insurance expert disclosed this on the sideline of the just concluded 48th Conference of African Insurance Organisation (AIO) Conference, held in Nairob, Kenya, that there must be a holistic focus on the retail business to improve industry profitability.
On the part of Heirs Life, he said, ” We have invested heavily in technology, because we believed we can not really serve the retail audience without appropriate technology. Within the last one year of our operation, the bulk of our revenue came from the retail market and this can be attributed to technology.”
He added that the bulk revenue achieved by the company has reaffirmed what he has already known over the years “that retail is where the profitability is. Retail is where the market is. Retail is where customer service is. And this one year to us it has been very good,” he assured.
On customer experience he said : “Insurance has gone beyond what it used to be before. Our industry now sees the importance of customer experience more than it used to be before. Customer as we all know is the king and we want to ensure we do everything humanly possible to satisfy the customer.
He added that “the customer of today is different from the customer of yesterday. The customer of today is digital in nature and you have to satisfy them as a digital insurance company. That is why as far as Heirs Life and Heirs General Insurance companies are concern we pride ourselves to be digital Insurance companies.
“People want to be served on the go and you cannot achieve that without you being digitally serving, without you having what in takes in terms of technology to serve the needs of the customer.
In Heirs our philosophy is to offer simple, quick, reliable and accessible Insurance not only in Nigeria but across Africa.”
On its financial performance he said the accounts of both Heirs Life and Heirs General companies are still under inspection by the insurance regulator, the National insurance Commission(NAICOM) but assured that both companies did very well in terms of revenue and profitability, especially when considering the fact that they just operated for only one year.
On Insurance penetration challenge, the Executive Director, Technical, Heirs General Insurance, Japhet Duru, said at heirs Insurance they are at the fore front of ensuring that the market penetration is at top level.
To achieve this, he said the company came up with differentiated products that will help meet the aspirations of its customers from the low level customers to the middle level and the top notch customer.
He gave example of its motor insurance policy with different varieties to meet the needs of the different level of customers.
According to him, the aim of having different varieties of motor insurance plan is to enable everyone purchase insurance at affordable rate, while noting that it is the aspiration of it’s organization to democratize insurance in the industry.
