Managing Director of Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc, Eddie Efekoha, says operators in the Nigerian insurance industry have collectively carried on as a non-cohesive body, noting that there is still lot of in-fighting, mutual suspicion and selfish agendas in the industry.

He lamented that there is no harmony among the different arms of the industry, warning that if care is not taken, foreigners and strange bed fellows would soon take over the industry as it would be too weak to fight external aggression.

Speaking at a Brokers' Evening hosted by the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB) in Lagos recently, Efekoha also raised an alarm over the continued cutting of insurance premium rates by insurance companies in their desperate bid to gain undue advantage over their competitors.

Reflecting on insurance practice in Nigeria post consolidation, Efekoha regretted that the unnecessary price war which paves the way for rate cutting has persisted in spite of the higher capital at the disposal of the operators.

He also lamented that practitioners in the different arms of the industry continue to undermine the principles of competition on which insurance practice rests, affirming that "multi-lateral series of price reductions, not necessarily based on logic or business sense" is being witnessed on a day to day basis in the operators' desperation to out-do competitors.

"In the short term, price wars are good for consumers who are able to take advantage of lower prices. But the truth is that they stand to loose if the industry becomes so weak that it can no longer play its role actively or is unable to grow its capacity to match global pace. The industry also looses credibility.

"We are indeed a laughing stock of the international market, even though they have been the ones also using us against ourselves. Ultimately, we the insurance practitioners are greater losers unless we put our acts together and collaborate", Efekoha warned.

"The price war, if allowed to go on, would continue to the detriment of all, and lead to loss of market integrity; lack of major shift in industry performance and no value addition to the customers but a collective interest would be better promoted if all keep to the standards of the profession, appropriate pricing, ethics of the profession and all that promotes collective integrity as professionals", Efekoha advised.

The major advantage that operators reap from the last recapitalisation exercise according to him was that armed with enhanced capital base, most insurance companies are now exploring ways to expand their operational capacity, widen their market reach and diversify their businesses respectively.

With regards to the level of cooperation between the different segments of the in the insurance industry including underwriters, reinsurers, insurance brokers, loss adjusters and the regulatory body, Efekoha stressed that there seems not to be harmony in the activities of the different arms of the industry.

Some of the visible signs of division among the segments, he noted include that they industry has continued to forge ahead as a non-cohesive body, increasing in-fighting, mutual suspicion and pursuit of selfish agenda.

Spreading of risks, according to him is the fundamental principle of insurance, adding that "It is not much of the fact that we now have higher retentions; it is more of the fact that we no longer trust ourselves."