WAPIC tackles insurance trust issues

In a bid to stem the tide of trust issues in the insurance industry, WAPIC has assured on revamping relationship among customers and underwriters in the insurance industry.

The executive director, WAPIC Insurance Plc, Mr Bode Ojeniyi, who stated this while launching the company’s ombudsman desk, stressed that one of the challenges affecting the insurance industry was lack of trust.

He added that his company was making all effort to rebuild confidence in the heart of customers, saying that over N2 billion was paid to customers who were on the claim lists when the company began its operation afresh.

“The greatest issue with the insurance industry today is the issue of trust, customers don’t trust insurance companies and one of the greatest challenges that the industry needs to resolve is the issue of trust.

“Let’s take a step to the WAPIC of today and the point at which the former board dissected from the company so a new company emerged, one of the things we said to ourselves is to begin to rebuild the trust of customers. And the first thing we did was to pay all outstanding claims that we had on our books.

“And in that year alone, which was 2013 - 2014, we paid over N2 billion in claims and the second year, we also focused on that. Then, we were not focused on whether we are recording profit or not, what we wanted then was to rebuild trust in the new organisation and that is what we are achieving. And one of the pillars of the organisation today is customer experience,” he stated.

Ojeniyi revealed that before the official launch of the ombudsman desk, the company had resolved over 57 commercial disputes.

“The onus is on us as an organisation to ensure that we resolve the issues and not escalate them. It is seen as our failure to be unable to resolve our issues, to clarify before it even gets to the level of NAICOM,” he said.