The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has restated that about 39.5 million Nigerians were totally excluded from the financial services system. These include insurance services, pension and banking services.
The bank said greater numbers of persons were excluded from insurance and pension services.
A representative of CBN at the micro insurance fair recently held in Lagos, Mr. Olayinka Peters from the Financial Inclusion Secretariat of the apex bank stated this while addressing exhibitors and visitors at the fair.
He attributed Nigerian's apathy to insurance in particular to lack of trust and financial education, adding that the above two problems must be addressed by the insurers in collaboration with the apex bank.
Peters said to help the apex bank wade into the problem, insurance industry must provide quality data on insurance activities.
According to him, CBN annually publishes data on banking, insurance and pension but that there has not been any quality data raised by insurance industry.
He said data on insurance often provided by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), is of poor quality pointing out that it lacked information on number of women , number of men and children that have insurance cover.
Furthermore, he said the available insurance data provided by the commission lacked sector by sector insurance activities such as agric sector insurance.
He called on the commission and umbrella body of insurance underwriters, the Nigeria Insurers Association to avail the apex bank with quality data that will enable it give adequate attention to insurance and come up with strategy on how to improve on the performance of the sector which after its century of operation in Nigeria contributes below one percent to the National GDP.
He promised that the financial inclusion strategy secretariat to which the NIA is a stake holder would publish every quality data released by the insurance industry.
THISDAY
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