Co-Operative Insurance in Nigeria: Challenges and Issues

Insurance is a mechanism through which members of the society channel their resources into a pool in order to address the impact of perils that could cause devastating losses to them. Insurance per se is a form of cooperatives for the pooling of funds for the purposes of indemnify losses. This study reviewed the operations of the cooperative insurance model through looking at their challenges, and benefits to the public. This study involved the use of primary data which collected from the respondents who were staff of co-operative insurance societies whose numbers could not be ascertained as a result of the spread of these societies across the country. A total of 150 copies of questionnaires were administered to the respondents in the sampled cooperative societies. Descriptive survey research design was used in carrying out this study. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used in the test of the hypotheses using Chi-square as tool. The reason for using Chi-Square Test is because of its suitability for testing the association between two categorical variables. The finding showed that the state of cooperative insurance society in Nigeria was still low as compared to what is obtainable in countries like Japan or Sri Lankan for examples This might as a result of the poor awareness of insurance among the members of the society. . However, this study also found that irrespective of the lower capital base of the cooperative insurance society in the country, these societies provide cover for high-risk perils such as in motor insurance and more so that they not have reinsurance protection for such covers. Cooperative insurance society could be used as a mode for increasing insurance penetration in Nigeria, but there is need for a review of the general operational guidelines for them.