Benedict Ujoatuonu and Universal Insurance Company: Timeless commitment, stronger promises

There are some people who have become so impactful in their chosen careers that they can no longer be ignored. The reasons are simple; these set of professionals have dedicated so much time, energy and resources in improving their skills and competences to the point that they have transformed into reservoir of knowledge thus dispensing ingenuity effortlessly. Dr Benedict Ugochukwu Ujoatuonu who is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Insurance Company Plc belongs to this crop of rare species of God’s creation.

An Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (ACIIN), Institute of Certified Cost Management (ACCM) and Fellow – Chartered Institute of Public Diplomacy & Management (CIPDM), Benedict Ugochukwu Ujoatuonu’s specie is hard to find hence the efforts and desire of the nation’s insurance industry to drink bountifully from his fountain of expertise and capacity.

A man of good nature, it is not surprising that Benedict is finding much joy in plying his trade which is insurance practice, he has been involved in growing a generation of insurance professionals whose ethical conducts and professional proficiency will not be called to question.

It is in this light that Benedict Ujoatuonu has been involved in preparing students for the insurance professional examinations organized by the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN). He is also involved in training and facilitation. He is the author of a life changing book titled “Success Secrets of the Rich now Exposed”. These efforts have led to greater challenges but not without much rewards as he is a recipient of the awards of the Education Developer of the year 2015 by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) and West African Students Union (WASU) and award of The Distinguished Fellowship of Professional Excellence Foundation of Nigeria (DFPEFON).

The good news is that Benedict Ujoatuonu has since assuming the responsibility of the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer continued to impact positively on the fortunes and business development strategies of Universal Insurance Company Plc, one of Nigeria’s first-generation insurance companies which has refused to trade it’s culture of insurance underwriting and risk management for anything that is unwholesome.

The good news is that Benedict, a youthful, energetic, unassuming and good-natured insurance professional has turned Universal Insurance Company into a theater of creative adventure from where customized and tailor-made insurance products and services are been churned out to the delight and satisfaction of the insuring public many of who have long desired personalized and problem-solving insurance products.

“I live a very simple life. One of the things going for me is that whenever that I give promise, I stand by it. This has helped my insurance career. This has really, really helped me. What people lookout for is an insurance company which they can trust, they want to know who is at the helm of affairs at the company, who is running the company, can the person be trusted and I must confess that Universal Insurance Company is reaping bountifully from the good characters of the professionals who are the running the company”, Dr Ujoagtuonu had observed.

Ujoatuonu is indeed doing some good work at Universal Insurance Company going by the company’s impressive growth trajectory as is evident in the gross earnings and capacity to settle genuine claims and on time too. It need to be emphasized that all the company’s performance indices are reading positive. Ujoatuonu says that he will continue to sustain the tempo even as he indicated that the company has grown it’s assest base from N11 billion in 2022 to N17 billion in 2023.

“I was here last year to brief you on what we have done, our projections and what we intended to do. I am here again this 2024 to let you know that all that we set out to achieve by the end of the year 2023, by the grace of God, I will say we achieved 98% of them. The branches we intended to open, were opened and I told you that we expected to end the year with a premium income of about N10 billion. However, we ended the year with a premium income of N9.3 billion with profit of over N530 million.

“This year 2024, we started out with very high expectations. We are also looking forward to opening more branches in 2024. In 2024, we are projecting to end the year with a premium income of about N20 billion. It may interest you to know that as at June this year, we are doing about N9.3 billion in premium income. We are very optimistic that we are going to achieve it before the end of 2024. Our shareholders fund will increase from about N9 billion to N12 billion. So all the indices for us are showing positive signs and we will continue to sustain it” he said.

A man with a high degree of concentration on his task table and always determined to make amends when the need arises, Benedict Ujoatuonu is not averse to criticisms hence he is always engaging his management and staff on ways of doing things better.

“I don’t know it all. I have always believed in team work. Consultations and negotiations are ways of life and one must be willing to bend towards superior arguments. I have that humility of learning from my subordinates if only to enrich myself”, one will hear him say.

This capacity to learn from others has been brought to bear on the quality of insurance products and services which Ujoatuonu has been rolling out from Universal Insurance Company. His belief in mass-marketing is evident in the number and quality of retail insurance products which Universal Insurance is now pushing into the market top of which is the Keke and Travelers insurance. The beauty of Universal Insurance Company’s Travelers Insurance package is that it covers both local and overseas travelers. His adoption and deployment of technology in the distribution and processing of insurance products and services counts in the favour of the company.

A consummate insurance professional of impeccable character, Benedict Ugochukwu Ujoatuonu says that he will want to be remembered for coming in and building a very strong and viable Universal Insurance Company with a structure which will sustain its growth. Yet indications are that Benedict may have superseded his desires as to have enabled him impact more positively on the larger Nigerian insurance industry.

For a better society

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