Translating NIIRA 2025 into action in life business
By Mathew Ogelenya Ogwezhi
MD/CEO, Capital Express Life Assurance Limited
After more than two decades in Nigeria’s insurance industry, I have seen first-hand the persistent challenge we face: despite a population of over 200 million and a vibrant economy, insurance penetration remains stubbornly low. Many Nigerians distrust the industry, find current products unaffordable, or do not see their value. This reality demands decisive action from those of us who understand both the roots and opportunities of our market. It is this context that shapes how I interpret the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act, NIIRA 2025
This legislation is the most comprehensive reform I have witnessed in my career.
It addresses capital adequacy, governance frameworks, consumer protection mechanisms, and digital transformation requirements in a way no previous regulatory intervention has attempted. But I will be direct: legislation of this kind has appeared on our horizon before, and what determined its impact was never the quality of the drafting. It was always the seriousness with which practitioners chose to implement it. That calculus has not changed.
The capital requirements in NIIRA 2025 have generated the most noise in boardrooms across the industry. I understand why. Recapitalisation is painful and disruptive, forcing difficult conversations about ownership, mergers, and viability. But I have never once regretted strengthening our capital position at Capital Express Life Assurance. Capital is not a regulatory burden to be satisfied and filed away. It is the foundation of credibility. It is what allows you to look a policyholder in the eye and say, without hesitation, that you will be there when they need you. Insurers who treat the new capital thresholds as a minimum to meet will miss the real lesson. Those who treat them as an opportunity to build genuine financial strength will find that investors, regulators, and customers notice.
On consumer protection, NIIRA 2025 asks us to do something that should never have required legislation: treat policyholders fairly. In my experience, the single greatest source of reputational damage in this industry is not fraud, poor product design, or inadequate marketing. It is the failure to pay claims promptly and transparently. Every time a legitimate claim is delayed, unnecessarily contested, or paid in a way that humiliates the beneficiary, we lose ten potential customers in that community, and they will never be recovered. The mathematics of poor claims handling is devastating, and the industry has been slow to confront them honestly. NIIRA 2025 pushes us towards faster, simpler, and more transparent claims processes. This is not a compliance exercise. It is a business transformation that will determine which companies are still standing and growing a decade from now.
The push towards digital transformation is one I welcome, but with a word of caution that comes from experience. Many insurers in this market have confused having a digital presence with having a digital strategy. A website is not a digital strategy. A mobile payment option is not a digital strategy. A genuine digital strategy means reimagining the entire customer journey, from awareness through policy issuance to claims settlement, and using technology at each stage to reduce friction, lower costs, and improve the quality of service. It means investing in data analytics that allow us to understand customer behaviour, anticipate lapses, and respond with relevant interventions before the relationship breaks down. It means meeting Nigerians on the platforms they already use daily, rather than asking them to find us. That work is deeper and more expensive than many boards are currently prepared to authorise, but NIIRA 2025 is right to push it forward.
The market opportunity this reform helps unlock is one I have spent years thinking about. Nigeria has millions of people in the informal economy, working in trades, driving vehicles for hire, running small retail operations, and raising families on incomes that are real but irregular. These are not uninsurable people. They are underserved people, and there is a meaningful difference. When we have gone to meet them with products designed for their actual lives, rather than for salaried workers in formal employment, the response has been encouraging. Micro-life insurance products with small, flexible premiums and clear, simple benefit structures can work in this market. The distribution channels are there, through mobile platforms, cooperatives, market associations, and faith communities. What has often been missing is the organisational will to invest in reaching people who do not fit the traditional customer profile. NIIRA 2025, through its broadened inclusion mandate, gives us both the regulatory framework and the business case to make that investment.
Governance sits at the centre of everything NIIRA 2025 aims to accomplish, and rightly so. A well-capitalised insurer with poor governance is an accident waiting to happen. I have seen this pattern too often. Strong boards that exercise genuine independent oversight, ask hard questions about risk concentration, take cybersecurity seriously as an operational threat rather than an IT department issue, and hold management accountable for results are not a luxury. They are a survival mechanism. The companies that will thrive under this new regulatory environment are those whose leadership structures were already moving in this direction before the Act was signed.
None of what NIIRA 2025 envisions is achievable without the people to execute it. Actuarial talent, technology professionals, compliance specialists, customer experience designers, and frontline staff who understand and believe in what insurance is supposed to do for families: these are the assets that translate a reform agenda into real outcomes. Training must be a continuous investment, not a budget line that disappears when margins are under pressure.
I have been in this industry long enough to know that reform cycles come and go. What determines their legacy is practitioners’ response. NIIRA 2025 is a serious piece of legislation from a regulator clearly prepared to enforce it. The question for every life insurer operating in Nigeria today is not whether to comply, but how boldly to use this moment to build something better. The industry our policyholders deserve is within reach. The only thing required to get there is the will to act.
