Dear Professional Colleagues,

On behalf of the Governing Council of our great Institute, the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, I wish to express our appreciation to our distinguished members for your concerted efforts in growing the profile of our great Institute during the year 2017. It is our belief that you celebrated the start of 2018 in good spirits with family and friends.

I especially want to sincerely thank you for your kind support and active participation in the Institute’s programmes during the past year i.e. The National Insurance Conference, The Professionals’ Forum, Education Seminar, and the Graduation Ceremonies of the Institute and the College of Insurance and Financial Management (CIFM), The Ramadan Tafsir and the Annual Christmas Carol. The successes record-
ed in all these programmes were due to the support and cooperation of members of the Institute for which we are immensely grateful.

I wish to inform you that the first phase of the renovation of the Secretariat which started under the immediate past presidency of Lady Isioma Chukwuma was successfully completed early in the year. The second phase will be completed in the next six weeks of this New Year. We are also not losing sight of our building project in Victoria Island for which the necessary approvals have been obtained for development.

Consultants have been engaged to help source for developers. The project has been advertised in two major newspapers last year and during all our major programs. We therefore solicit the support of our members in sourcing for a developer that will help to complete this project.

We want to thank all our leaders who have contributed in no small measure to the height that the Institute has attained so far. There is no doubt that the Institute has continued to build on the legacies of her past leaders who have contributed immensely to the development of our great Institute.

Although the year 2017 started on a shaky note with the economic recession, the Institute has been able to pull through it, with the prudent management of the resources at her disposal coupled with the Governing Council’s oversight function and visionary leadership.

The Institute has continued to provide the platform for uniting the various arms of the industry through its various activities, and will continue to do so in the New Year.
We thank all the stakeholders; NIA, ILAN, and NCRIB for their support.

There is no doubt that our industry has great potentials and under the present leadership of our great Institute the focus is on insurance education and enlightenment with the aim of deepening insurance penetration in Nigeria.

This is evident in the programs that has been carried out in the last five months of the just concluded year e.g. the collaboration programs with the University of Lagos for the Master’s degree program in Insurance and Risk Management to be fashioned along that of the CASS Business School in the UK, and the new B.Sc. program of the Babcock University. Talks with the various institutions have reached an advanced stage and hopefully will be completed this year.

The youth empowerment program involving members of the National
Youth Service Corps began in December with the last batch of corpers for the year 2017 and will be concluded in January 2018 with a free insurance training for those interested in pursuing a career in insurance. The aim of this is to check the problem of aging workforce in the industry. We hope to consolidate on this in the New Year.

We have continued with the distribution of insurance text books to educational institutions both at the secondary and tertiary levels in the course of the year through the Ministry of Education in the various states and higher institutions of learning. The Train-the-Trainers program for teachers in the secondary schools has been organized in the states where books have been distributed.

We believe that with all these efforts the membership of our great
Institute will grow by more students taking our examinations.

We appeal to all our members in executive positions in the industry to encourage their staff to take the professional examinations by giving
due recognition to insurance qualifications.

We also solicit support for the College of Insurance and Financial Studies that has been set up by the Institute to meet the manpower needs of the industry through its various training programs and to support the development of infrastructure in the College.

We express our deep appreciation to the National Insurance Commission for the support given to the Institute for the execution of her programs and activities in the course of the year.

I therefore seize this opportunity to seek your support towards the desired success of the programmes and activities of the Institute in the year 2018.

Indeed, the year 2018 promises to be a busy and rosy year for the Insurance Industry. We must most importantly embrace professionalism and best practices and also uphold the Institute’s Ethics and Values in the course of
our business endeavours in 2018.

I sincerely hope I can count on you to make the Institute’s programmes and activities in 2018 more successful than the previous year.

Once again, I thank you for your support and I wish you a blessed, peaceful and prosperous year 2018.

Yours in Service,

MRS. FUNMI BABINGTON-ASHAYE, FIIN, FCII
President,
Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria.