Total premium paid in the Nigerian Insurance industry for 2025 stood at about N2. 3 trillion, a 47% increase from the N1.5 trillion it did the previous year.

Let me give you some more breakdown.

Non-life (general Insurance) contributed approximately 68.4% (N1). 5trillion with the oil and gas, fire and motor insurance driving that.

Life contributed 31.6% driven by the surge of annuity.

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The industry however, paid out an impressive N882 billion in claims.

It is these figures that Chris Baywood Ibeh, the promoter and main driver of the Insuretech platform, is aiming at growing.

Ibeh, better known as Emperor Baywood, is a dyed-in-the-wool entrepreneur who has seen it all.

Breaking into Oil and gas, where he hit pay dirt, Emperor has now set his sights on technology.

Sitting with him in his expansive villa in a quiet part of the Ikeja GRA and watching his Swimming pool cascade through his Napolitan living room to the immediate environs of his mansion, where a bridge over the pool gives off a feeling of medieval castles with their moats, I listen very carefully.

Edgar, the world’s economy has moved from extractive to tech, and this is inevitable cos every 100 years, economic drivers change.

This is why we are changing our focus to Technology.

In this regard, he has launched CBI, a multi-platform digital experience that parleys news, entertainment and other such programs that are already streamed on various platforms digitally to the world.

Edgar, we just spent N1 billion on content; it’s crazy, but we have been bitten by the bug.

As he speaks over nuts and fine whiskey, he narrows down to Insurtech, a new App that has just received a license from NAICOM, the insurance regulator.

This is historic he proclaims. This is the first-ever collaboration of its type in the industry.

According to him, Insurtech is an enabling marketplace for the Insurance industry as it has been designed to open up a place in a very transparent and efficient manner for its stakeholders.

Nigerians, in one fell swoop, will see all underwriters, their offerings, and the terms and will be in a better position to make sensible decisions in buying Insurance.

This, for Ibe, is expected to ramp up the above-stated figures by over 250% near term and basically just ramp up stakes in the industry turning players into mega giants.

Ibe is a different kind of visionary, one driven by the push for legacy.

His risks in this space come with tremendous pressure – funding a huge enterprise that is still in the ‘gobbling’ space.

He hints at financial pressure with a brief mention of a struggle with a Bank on exposure but quickly waves it off as being settled with a smile.

He invites me on a tour of his expansive studio premises nestled within the Anthony Village suburbs of Lagos.

The Board meeting for the Insurtech was just wrapping up, where the NAICOM license was once again presented to the media and where he restated his interest in the industry, and I gleaned Industry giant Lolo Idu who is GMD of Royal Exchange PLC, an Insurance player with a hundred-year history.

Attracting such big guns to the Board of Insuretech goes very far to show Ibe’s doggedness and the vast potential of the initiative.

He then gleefully takes me on a tour of the studios where he explains the infrastructure, its reach and its team very succinctly.

He mentions that Gbenga Adebija, a branding and communications giant, is their MD and that work has gone very far in well positioning the platform, which has been designed to rival the best the world can throw at it.

As I wake up this morning, I am struck by a link sent by Ibe – collaborate with me and share.

It is a link sharing his vision, and I smiled. The Emperor has truly been bitten by the technology bug, and very unlike many who have trudged this path to failure, something tells me that Ibe is truly on a firm trajectory to history.

Watch this space.