TC Daily

TechCabal Daily – 1.9% of Nigerians have insurance coverage- can tech companies change that?

Olumuyiwa Olowogboyega 11th June 2020

“Nigerians are very poor, People with low income cannot afford to subscribe to insurance services.”

Here’s one stat to show how unpopular insurance coverage is in Nigeria: of the 28.5% of adults in Nigeria who use formal financial institutions, only 1.9% have insurance coverage.

One of the reasons Nigerians are not big on insurance is that they know little about the sector or thing that they cannot afford it. There’s also the Nigerian penchant to “leave things in the hands of God.”

While motor vehicle insurance is compulsory for car owners, majority of people opt for third-party
insurance. Even with third-party insurance, many people do not put in insurance claims.

Here’s another stat: The ratio of motor vehicle claims paid relative to the premium collected was 0.43 in 2016.

It’s a dire state of affairs, and in this article, Abubakar Idris says that while progress is slow in the insurance industry, there are now sparks of innovation by some companies.

Heads up: you can now take an Uber when you run out of cash or you have no money in the bank.

Uber has now added a cash wallet feature to its app, which customers may now use to make payments for rides. The service is available across seven countries; South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Tanzania.

According to Alon Lits, Uber’s General Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa. “For example in Nigeria you can use
your Verve Card or mobile money. In Kenya, you can use M-Pesa and EFT (electronic funds transfer), and in South Africa you can top up with EFT,”

Read all about it here.

Every week, Kay’s My Life In Tech column puts human faces to some of the innovative startups, investments and policy formations driving technology across Africa.

This week, she spoke to Jane Egerton-Idehen, the Country Manager/Regional Sales Manager West Africa for Avanti Communications.

Her grass to grace story starts in Ajegunle, one of the most popular slums in Lagos and takes a turn at the University of Nigeria, where she studied electronics engineering.

She has gone on to study at Yale, Harvard and the Warwick University. Her inspirational career started from being an earth space engineer who used to sleep at the office and Kay captures her trajectory here.

Despite a lot of talk about how streaming services will end the dominance of the pay TV company, MultiChoice, the group has reported a 14% increase in trading profits for the year ended march 31, 2020.

According to TechCentral: “Core headline earnings rose by 38% to R2.5-billion, while free cash flow was up 59% to R5.2-billion, leaving the group, which owns DStv, SuperSport, Showmax and Irdeto, with R9.1-billion of cash on its balance sheet at year-end.”

Read all about MultiChoice Group’s strong performance here.