By Dipo Olowookere
One of Nigeria’s foremost insurance underwriters with a focus on General and Special Risks, Royal Exchange General Insurance Company, (REGIC), has paid out N1.683 billion as claims settlements to its clients at the end of the third quarter of 2016.
Making this disclosure in Lagos, Managing Director of REGIC, Mr Benjamin Agili, said that his company’s focus is the prompt settlement of genuine insurance claims and this will continue to be the business philosophy of the company in years ahead, adding that the company will continue to support the business community as it strives to increase the manufacturing capacities of industries in the country.
According to Mr Agili, “Royal Exchange has once again demonstrated its strength and ability to honour its financial obligations and also protect the interest of its various corporate and individual clients, as there is a conscious effort to have a genuine partnership with the clients based on trust and integrity, core values which was instilled by the founders of the company and have continued to drive the operations and strategic directions of the company”.
He further added that “customer satisfaction is the fulcrum of insurance business and this inevitably builds customer loyalty. Once Royal Exchange is able to pay customers claims as they arise, more and more customers and the general public will have faith to take out insurance policies on their lives and properties because they are convinced that should a claim/loss arise, Royal Exchange will be able to meet its financial obligations to its clients”.
Giving a breakdown of the various amounts paid in the different insurance classes, Mr Agili said a total of N551.19 million was paid on Industrial All Risk (IAR) insurance policies, representing 33% of the total amount paid out so far at the end of quarter3, 2016. For Motor and Accident insurance policies, N434.57 million was paid to policy holders, accounting for 26 percent of the total sum paid, while Marine Insurance claims was 21 percent of the total, which amounted to N346.95 million.
Other classes of insurance with claims payments include General Accident insurance policies with N140.97 million paid out as claims, representing 8 percent, while Fire Insurance policies resulted in total claims payment of N105.33 million paid out, which is about 6% of the claims paid to various clients.
Claims paid on other classes of insurance such as Engineering Insurance Policies was N67 million and Special Risks amounted to N37.1 million, which represents 4 percent and 2 percent respectively of the total claims paid by the end of Q3, 2016.
Speaking further on the import of the huge sums paid out in the past three quarters by Royal Exchange General Insurance, the Managing Director of REGIC said “It is a testament to our enduring capacity to shoulder any form of risk and evidence of our financial depth derived from prudent and conservative accounting system, a highly motivated workforce as well as a professionally structured organisation”.
According to Mr Agili, “The payment of these claims has shown that Royal Exchange General Insurance is more than capable of meeting its various claims demands, especially as in the past, the company paid close to N4billion to Nigerian bottling Company for the fire in its Benin plant in 2010 and was the lead insurer in a consortium that paid out over N3.63billion to Friesland Foods West African Milk Company (WAMCO) over the major flood disaster that occurred in its Lagos factory in 2011.”
Adedapo Adesanya