Nigerian insurance stakeholders have called for a united front to expand health insurance coverage and rebuild public trust in the industry.
Speaking on Thursday, November 27, 2025, at the annual conference of the Health and Managed Care Association of Nigeria (HMCAN) and the Institute for Healthcare Finance and Management (IHFM), stakeholders agreed that a unified, transparent, and well-funded health insurance system is essential for restoring public trust and achieving wider coverage.
This year’s theme, tagged “The imperative of a purposeful, united and proactive health insurance industry,” underscored the sector’s potential for growth through collaboration and strengthened public confidence.
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Abdulkadri Osumah, chairman of HMCAN, emphasised the need for a collective approach to rebuilding trust, warning that public confidence in the system continues to decline.
“Nigeria’s health insurance penetration has fallen behind the country’s rapid population growth. This low coverage looks like failure, but it is also a big opportunity,” he noted.
“If we must ensure wider coverage and rebuild public trust, we must unite to achieve this feat because there is strength in unity,” he added. “In order to have one voice, we must not operate in isolation,” he explained.
“We want sustainable growth, not just fast growth. Only sustainability builds confidence,” Osumah said.
Also speaking at the event, Kolawole Owoka, chairman of the conference, urged Nigeria to “create demand” around health services. He referenced Germany’s first health insurance system, established in 1883, and the United Kingdom’s tax-funded model launched in 1948 as examples of sustained healthcare frameworks.
Osumah commended the outgoing executives for steering the industry through what he described as a “challenging and uncertain” decade for health financing, noting that the new leadership would build on past progress.
He added that the industry would prioritise two major steps: bringing all operators under a unified association and working with state health agencies and the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to enforce mandatory coverage while educating Nigerians on its benefits. “It will be both enforcement and engagement,” he said. “People must know they have a duty to enrol, but also see the real value,” he added.
“If you build a hospital, create demand around it and encourage people to enroll, while ensuring that they use the facility. Otherwise, the building will rot,” Osumah explained.
The event marked the annual conference and induction ceremony of HMCAN and IHFM.
Increased government revenue is key to more funding
Leke Oshuniyi, the immediate past HMCAN chairman, stressed that stronger funding is essential for achieving universal health coverage, adding that this can only be achieved through increased government revenue.
Oshuniyi also highlighted the importance of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund, which allocates just 0.5 per cent of consolidated revenue to services for vulnerable Nigerians. “If Nigeria earns more revenue, health insurance could get ore allocation that can change lives,” he said.
According to him, achieving 60 per cent health coverage within five years is realistic if current reforms are sustained.
