The Life Insurance branch of the NSIA Group has launched two products, IFO and BLÊBLÊ, aimed at small savers. In this interview, Mrs. Nadège Séka Touré, Managing Director of NSIA VIE Côte d'Ivoire, explains the particularity of these two consumer products and takes stock of the 2018 financial year.

“In 2018, we achieved 27 billion in turnover and paid 15 billion in services”

Financial Afrik: how is NSIA LIFE?

Nadège Séka Touré: NSIA VIE today is the 2nd life insurance company on the Ivorian market, with 27 billion in turnover achieved in 2018 and NSIA VIE is doing well in the sense that it has started a number of processes which will allow us to progress and evolve over the next few years in a new dynamic.

There is a certain boom in insurance companies. What makes NSIA VIE ASSURANCE special? For example, what could encourage subscribers to come to you and trust you?

Indeed, there is a boom in life insurance and this is not displeasing, I think, to the corporation. As you know, the life insurance market is very small today. The life insurance penetration rate is 2%. It's not very high and the arrival of new players will contribute to improving the penetration rate. As far as it is concerned, NSIA Vie has a particularity: it is already a company of the NSIA group present in 12 countries of the sub-region, so it is a strong group, a pan-African group which aspires to embody the true face of life. 'assurance. In the same vein, NSIA Vie, which is as I told you earlier, 2nd in the Ivorian market, has a new dynamic and this dynamic is to revolutionize the world of insurance a little through its innovation, through its resolutely customer-oriented orientation. The customer is the center and all our actions are carried out in the sense of satisfying the customer and providing him with solutions that will allow him to cover his daily life and ensure his safety. So the particularity is really innovation.

In general, for a good part of Africans, being insured is reserved for an elite because people do not understand how insurance companies work. What is the language you use to capture all this segment of the population who does not understand that it is important to take out insurance?

Today, our offers are more and more adapted to the needs of customers and with this in mind we have recently launched two new products called ”Ifo” and ”Blêblê”. “Ifo” which is a contingency product which makes it possible to meet funeral expenses. As we know here in Africa, funerals are a financial cost. This product dedicated to small stock exchanges makes it possible to deal with such an event for a capital of 250,000 francs at subscription. At the same time, we have the Blêblê product which is a savings product opened from a payment of 1,500 Francs . These are not products for wealthy people. These are precisely examples of offers likely to interest the general public and tell them that you don't need to have a lot of money to save or to ensure security in the event of a hard blow.

In general, what risks do you cover for the general public?

Our job is to cover the risks. For example, the risks of death the cover intervenes in the event of the death of the insured or of a third party whom he wished to insure. Precisely, a product like IFO makes it possible to cover and accompany. To sum up, we have two categories of products: provident-type products allowing you to predict what you should have in the event of a hard blow in life (case of death). We also have savings-type products that allow you to save today when you have the means to ensure your retirement or cover difficult times. It is these two categories of products which are made available to the general public and which slowly allow them to cope with the vagaries of life.

You mentioned retirement insurance, can you be more specific?

In our two categories of products, family of products we will say, we have everything related to provident insurance. For example, you can insure a lump sum for your wife or children in the event of your death. In addition, there are products such as “IFO” types of small capital funeral loans to meet the expenses that arise in the event of the death of a loved one. And we have savings-type products. It is savings that we build up today, in full possession of our means, over the long term to allow us to have capital in retirement. This capital will be paid gradually or all at once. There is also the case of product adapted to the project. If you want to develop a project over five years and you do not want to solicit the bank, you can opt for savings gently. We have a product called NSIA SAVINGS PROJECT where we save very slowly and at the end we have capital to start a business or to start a small business.

Yes, but despite everything you explain, for the average citizen, the consumer is not yet king among insurance companies. So, what do you say in a concrete way to be able to reassure everyone? Because people always find that in insurance contracts, there are little pitfalls that customers cannot detect?

When I take the example of IFO and BLÊBLÊ products, these are products that are not only simple in cost but also simple in their implementation. There are no big promises or complicated promises in too difficult language. These are products that have been designated truly mainstream. There is no fine print anywhere on the contract. The principle is simple. You contribute 500 CFA francs per month, this is what you will receive at the end of such a period. The language has been simplified knowing that one of the things that insurers are often criticized for is the language, often not very accessible, and the asterixes and small characters. These products are really clear and simple. In addition to our branches and advisors, there is a call center that receives all customer calls. We respond to all their complaints. We use various channels including social networks, in particular Facebook, to facilitate the relationship with the customer. Terminals are placed in the branches as well as online connections to process payment requests within short deadlines. Previously, we were on a 21-day waiting period to collect the redemption of what the customer had contributed. Today we are at 10 days and we are moving towards the 2-3 day goal. These are all the changes we are putting in place to explain to consumers that there is nothing to hide in an insurance house, particularly at NSIA.

NSIA is primarily known for being an insurance company and NSIA Banque a credit institution. Is the convergence between the two professions inevitable?

You know, we're all in the business of finance and savings. We are therefore both in the business of banking and that of life insurance. In life insurance, we talk about long-term savings because in general insurance products are products that allow you to save over the long term, you can go up to 10,15,20 years and the interest of insurance savings is that it's money you don't think about. When you put a little money in the bank, the first reflex as soon as you have difficulties is to go and recover what you have in the savings account. When you put money in a life insurance company, the reflex is not there, it is not this money that we think of first. We will explore all avenues. And it's when you're really stuck that you say to yourself “well, I'm going to go sting over there”. What we contribute for today is money for retirement. So it's not in our interest to come and dip into the money we're saving for retirement.

That said, we work very closely with the banks because, when we receive deposits from consumers, we look for ways to make them grow, to ensure that the consumer who gives the money to the insurance companies comes out with a capital which has been subsidized with interest, which has been subsidized with dividends. So, you can save in the bank and also save for more distant times in insurance. The two professions merge and complement each other in terms of savings. Of course, insurance is not a bank. The bank can grant you loans. We are not authorized to make loans but we can encourage people to save over the long term. To simplify, you can save in the short term at the bank, you can also save in the long term in insurance.

As for IFO and BLÊBLÊ, why are you not over 64 years old?

Because insurance is a complicated profession, which also involves a lot of parameters and risk analysis. The risk of an insurance company is to end up with too many claims. If there are too many deaths, we are no longer able to insure the deaths of those who are in these claims. So, we are forced somewhat reluctantly to limit ourselves to what we can do. Because we can sell you that we will insure up to 90 years but that can mean that if our analyzes are not good that we find ourselves in a situation where we are no longer able to honor claims. It is in the light of all this that we set the ceiling age which allows us to say up to this level we are capable of providing benefits. Let's not put ourselves at an age where after we are faced with a level of loss such that we can no longer insure.

But given that it is precisely after the age of 64 that people need a lot more resources because their health is quite precarious; why is this segment of the population left behind?

It is precisely because it is not at this age that one begins to save. We save beforehand to be able to take advantage of our savings. Afterwards, we are not going to make products to puncture on people who they are supposed to have already saved. So what we want to encourage people to do is to say between the ages of 18 and 64 you have to think about saving because afterwards you have to take advantage of your savings. We're not going to tell people that at 80 the money we acquired while we were still in office is when we're trying to save; at that moment we seek to take advantage of it. The interest for us is to encourage everyone to do it while they are active, while they have the resources to do it so that they can enjoy this part of their life.

Coming back to IFO and BLÊBLÊ, these 2 products that you launched, what are their particularities?

These are products for small purses. You can save from 1500 francs per week. Previously, savings may have started at 5,000 or 10,000 francs. We've lowered the bar to include more people, including those without bank accounts. We started on these products with MTN, we are going to extend it to other telephone companies. These products are completely new in the sense that savings and pensions are concepts that have existed for a long time, but for the elite.

Finally, how is your balance sheet for the 2018 financial year?

NSIA VIE ASSURANCE achieved 27 billion in turnover and paid 15 billion in benefits in 2018. This is more than 50% of what we collected in premiums. Which means that we make it a point of honor to insure because the strength of an insurance company is its ability to keep its promises. We have 200,000 members whom we support by guaranteeing them that we are a company that keeps its commitments.