The Federal Government has advised Nigerians to embrace life insurance amongst other financial planning options they are considering in their efforts to guarantee stress-free retirement experiences.
The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, gave the advice at the 3rd NAIPCO conference, with the theme ‘The Role of Stake Holders in Developing Insurance and Pension Sectors’, just concluded in Lagos.
Represented by the Deputy Commissioner for Insurance, Finance and Administration, George Onekhena, at the forum, the minister pointed out that life insurance remained key to sound financial planning and a panacea for poverty alleviation.
The minister, who described financial planning without provision for life insurance which is the trend in the country today as like building a future without a solid foundation, advised that citizens should cultivate interest in life insurance policy that would be beneficial to their lives.
Adeosun said that in order to fully understand how life insurance could be helpful to their financial management, those who were not conversant with how it works should engage the services of insurance brokers for advice.
The minister explained that this option had become necessary in view of the fact that nobody knows when death can come, adding that it will be disastrous for anyone to leave dependents without benefits.
She said: “Every Nigerian buys one house hold item or the other at any time and you don’t enter the market and start making your purchases. You make enquiries before going to market, in like manner, in your life insurance decisions, you can take time to ask questions on the life insurance policy you want to buy.
“Nobody knows the day of his death, so life insurance is critical, life insurance is foundation to every wise financial planning”, Adeosun added.
On the constraints insurance and pension operators in Nigeria are contending with, the minister linked low awareness among the issues that should be frontally tackled in the efforts to grow the pension and insurance sectors and improve their contributions to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.
For instance, she noted that people hardly tell the public when they get benefit from the two sectors, particularly the retirement benefits paid on monthly basis by Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) to retirees and claims being paid yearly by insurers.