Ngozi Amuche
Access Bank of Nigeria Plc has entered into a partnership with Coronation Insurance to drive an efficient and effective bancassurance system.
The partnership was discussed during an earlier organised webinar themed, “Managing Risks that Keep CEOs up at Night,” was in a bid to avail its numerous customers the best underwriting and claims experience.
In explaining the choice of Coronation Insurance Plc from a pool of other insurance firms in Nigeria, the CEO/GMD of Access Bank, Hebert Wigwe, explained that apart from the close ties the bank has with the insurance firm, it considered some other important criteria, such as the financial strength/capitalisation and underwriter speed of response to customers.
In his view, Coronation Insurance satisfied all the required criteria, part of which informed the decision to choose the firm over others.
Wigwe commented on the close relationship between the bank and the firm, adding that Coronation Insurance, formerly known as WAPIC Insurance, was part of the Access Bank ecosystem and “we do have fond memories of its spin off when our shareholders received their dividends after the spin-off”.
“I am very proud of the great strides that the institution has made since its spin-off, recording several achievements, one of which is being among the fastest growing corporate risk underwriter over the last decade, and being among the top three most capitalized insurance businesses in the country,” he said.
On why Coronation Insurance was picked as its partner, Wigwe said, “In choosing among a pool of potential organisations to fill this gap, we have had to look at a couple of identifiers, with the first among them being underwriter speed of response to customers and the second is the financial strength and the capitalisation base of the underwriter.”
According to him, “Given all these, and with the interest of its customers at heart, Access Bank considered all of these qualities and found coronation to be leading between the various categories. We want our customers to have the best underwriting and claims experiences.”
Chairman of Coronation Insurance, Mutiu Sunmonu, commended the partnership, saying, “This partnership represents a key milestone in the Nigerian insurance industry. Through the coming together of both organisations, new standards of quality and service delivery will be established within the industry.”