Compulsory insurance: Mutual Benefits develops agency system

As part of efforts to deepen insurance penetration at the grass roots and maximise the potential in the compulsory insurance policies, Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc has developed its agency system.

The Group Managing Director of the insurance company, Mr. Akin Ogunbiyi, said this in an interview with our correspondent on Friday.

He said, “We have trained experienced people who can immediately drive the compulsory policies, because there is the need to enlighten the public on the benefits of the policies.”

According to him, the company has over 3,000 agents, with experienced marketers who can readily drive the compulsory policies.

He said, “The first set of people that we trained are those who have worked with experienced places, experienced in different aspects of the Nigerian economy, who can immediately make impact on the industry.”

According to him, the company has a developed agency system including trained fresh graduates who are about 3,000.

He said, “We have the agency managers, we have the senior risk advisors who are status agents. Then we have franchise dealers who will graduate from risk advisors that we will support to run the chosen places as Mutual offices. They will stand the structure and sell all the policies.”

The managing director also said that the company was targeting the sale of one million policies by the end of 2012.

Ogunbiyi explained that there were immense benefits in the policies, a reason the populace should readily embrace them.

He, however, expressed worry over the low level of insurance participation in the country, but added that it was a scenario that could be reversed by developing the retail market.

He noted that at present, the insurance gap in the country stood at 94 per cent, meaning that less than six per cent of the population had any business to do with insurance.

“In the last three years, we have positioned ourselves as the masses company. We have come up realising that we need to deepen insurance penetration to make impact. We are using retail insurance marketing for growth in Muutual Benefits. We took the initiative about four years ago, even before the compulsory insurance came,” Ogunbiyi said.

source : Punch