The Group Managing Director, Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc, Mr. Akin Ogunbiyi, has said that the firm will be expanding its offices and agency system to bring insurance to the doorstep of every Nigerian.
He said this during a press conference in Lagos.
“We have slated 200 new offices for opening between 2012 and 2015; 32 were opened in 2012 and we hope to bring existing and new offices of Mutual Benefits nationwide to 96 by December 2013,” Ogunbiyi said.
According to him, Lagos, Oyo, Osun and the Federal Capital Territory are pilot states, while 24 more states will be covered by the end of 2014.
He also said that it planned to create 22,000 new jobs in line with the manpower need for the industry by 2015, under the Market Development and Restructuring Initiative.
The firm, he said, would collaborate with the various states and Federal Government’s agencies and business organisations.
The group managing director said that a 14 chapter manual had been developed as project master plan for 2012 to 2015.
Ogunbiyi said the firm was talking with the Insurance Consumers Association of Nigeria to find out what would make the insuring public happy and embrace the sector.
In Mutual Benefis, he said, the company was enhancing its distribution channel for the traditional, micro-insurance, and takaful insurance, using different means such as aggregators, bancassurance, mall outlets, faith organisations, business membership organisations, insurance brokers, franchise managers, party administrators, and independent network providers.
So far, he said, it had developed 50 new products along social, demographic, trade groups and risks peculiar to each segment in Nigeria. The first batch of these products, he said, would be rolled out in April.
In the company, he said, insurance agency had become a job, a profession, a career and business, adding that an insurance agent now had the potential to rise to the position of managing director and chief executive officer in the firm.