By Anita Dennis
A new collaboration between NAICOM and NASRDA is setting the stage for a shift in how insurance operates in Nigeria. Both agencies have agreed to deploy satellite imagery and geospatial intelligence to improve underwriting accuracy, strengthen enforcement of compulsory insurance, and support the development of a national catastrophic risk insurance framework.
The Commissioner for Insurance and Chief Executive Officer of NAICOM, Mr. Olusegun Ayo Omosehin, said that the initiative is designed to deliver measurable outcomes through enforcement and innovation. The Director-General of NASRDA, Mr. Matthew Adepoju, emphasised that data-driven systems would underpin insurance development and help manage national risk exposure more effectively.
At the centre of the recent partnership is the use of high-resolution satellite mapping and geospatial datasets to build a credible national asset base. Nigeria’s insurance market has long been constrained by weak asset visibility, with many buildings and public infrastructure either undocumented or poorly captured. This has limited underwriting precision and weakened enforcement of compulsory insurance laws.
With satellite-backed verification, regulators and insurers would be able to identify properties, assess exposure to risks such as flooding or structural vulnerability, and determine whether required insurance policies are in place. This introduces a more systematic approach to compliance, particularly for public buildings and critical infrastructure.
The initiative also signals a broader structural adjustment. By embedding geospatial intelligence into regulatory processes, enforcement could become less discretionary and more automated. Instead of relying on fragmented records or manual inspections, compliance can be tracked against verifiable data, potentially expanding the insurable base without new legislation.
A key component of the collaboration is the proposed development of a national catastrophic risk insurance model. This framework is intended to pool large-scale risks such as floods and other disasters into structured insurance mechanisms, reducing the fiscal burden on government during emergencies and aligning Nigeria with global disaster-risk financing practices.
The implications across the market are uneven. Insurers with strong analytical capacity stand to benefit from improved data and more accurate pricing models. Government asset managers may gain from clearer inventory and risk profiling of public infrastructure. However, insurers reliant on opaque underwriting practices could face adjustment pressures, while previously uninsured asset owners may encounter stricter enforcement.
Operational risks remain. Integrating satellite data into insurance workflows requires technical capacity that is not yet widespread across the industry. Questions around data governance and privacy are also likely to arise as national asset mapping becomes more detailed. In addition, effective coordination between NAICOM and NASRDA will be critical to sustaining the system beyond initial implementation.
Even with these constraints, the direction is evident. Insurance regulation in Nigeria is moving towards a data-driven model, where risk is quantified through verifiable intelligence rather than approximation. If execution is sustained, the initiative could improve insurance penetration, strengthen investor confidence in risk pricing, and support the development of more structured risk financing instruments.
