The Nigerian Insurance industry business grew by 15 percent year-on-year in 2017, rising to N363 billion up from the N315.96 billion recorded in the preceding year.

The immediate past Chairman of the Nigeria Insurance Association (NIA), Eddie Efekoha, gave this hint on Thursday  during the  association’s 47th Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Lagos.

This is even as he projected that  the association’s Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) initiative and other strategic efforts to consolidate the gains in the industry would increase insurance uptake by the public.

Efekoha explained that the industry players, who are working in collaboration with the National Insurance commission (NAICOM), to grow the industry,  had embarked on various initiatives targeted at deepening insurance penetration in the country.

The insurer, who is also the Managing Director of Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc, listed some of the initiatives to include, the drawing the insurance industry roadmap; financial inclusion; micro insurance; bancassurance and the insurance industry rebranding project.

Efekoha, who formally handed over the association’s leadership to the new chairman, Mr. Tope Smart, at the AGM thanked the management of the NAICOMand other professional bodies for their support during his two-year tenure.

Meanwhile, the new chairman in his acceptance speech promised to do everything possible to use the association to move the insurance industry forward.

In order to do this, he said that he would use his experiences over the years as an executive of the association as well as support from past chairmen and other industry stakeholders to take the association to greater heights.

He said: “I will collaborate with NAICOM, NCRIB, ILAN and other agencies to move out great association forward. Protection of members company interest  is paramount to me and my administration slogan is  “NIA first and by extension Insurance First”.