Analysis of the impacts of insurance claims settlement on economic growth: The case of Nigeria

Abstract

Insurance plays an essential role in stimulating economic growth. Insurance is an intangible product, and prompt claim settlement proves that insurers fulfill their promises to the insureds. This paper analyses the impacts of insurance claims settlement on economic growth. It examines the effect of insurance claims' settlements on a nation's economic growth, using Nigeria as a case study. The research utilised an ex-post facto design, using 28-year time series data (1992 – 2019). Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Nigeria's insurance companies' claims settlement are the dependent and independent variables used for the study, respectively. The Long-run co-integration result revealed that INCLM (Insurance claims) has an insignificant negative effect on GDP. The coefficient shows that a percentage increment in INCLM (Insurance claims) would result in a 1.22 decrease in GDP. The results indicate that insurance claims settlement has an insignificant negative effect on economic growth. This implies a negative relationship between insurance claims settled by insurance companies and economic growth in Nigeria. The finding is surprising as one expects that settlement of claims by insurers should positively impact economic growth. The implication is that the relationship between insurance claims settlement and economic growth varies depending on several factors, including country-specific factors and the performance of the country's insurance industry.