Despite high inflationary trend plaguing the country, the federal government has budgeted a total of N17.3 billion for the group life insurance of its workers.
This is out of N58.47 trillion total budget for the year 2026 presented to the joint session of National Assembly by president Bola Ahmed Tinubu on December 19th, 2026.
Last year (2025) the government allocated N17.31 billion to the group life insurance of its workers out of a total of N 54.99 trillion budget approved for the country for the year.
Analysts said this is an indication that federal government de- emphasised the relevance of insurance in national economic growth.
Further analysis of this shows that the federal government is unmindful of the security of its assets, which could have been safe guarded through insurance and is also paying lip service to the welfare of its staff in terms of group life insurance.
According to the analysts, this lack of regard for insurance has been instrumental to slow growth of insurance and the trend has continued for many years back leading to infinitesimal contribution of the sector to national economy.
For instance, up till last year, insurance contributions to GDP was still less than one percent according to statistics by the Nigeria National bureau of statistics.
However, sector analysts said allocation of 6 percent of this year’s budget to health sector which covers health insurance will be beneficial to insurance sector.
Allocations in the health sector (totalling 6% of the budget) also cover the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which involves the insurance sector.
On the other hand, the analysts said allocation of N3.56 trillion to infrastructural projects in this year’s appropriation bill as against N4 trillion allocated in 2025 budget has doused hope of higher performance of insurance sector in 2026 year.
This is because when allocation to infrastructure is high, insurers reap bountifully from infrastructural project execution as the project must have insurance cover.
Section 9, sub section 3 of PRA 2014 requires employers to maintain a life insurance policy for all their employees. The act further mandates employers to pay at least three times the employees’ gross annual total remuneration into group life insurance policy.
In compliance with this law, the federal government as employer makes provision through annual budgets for group life insurance of its workers including members of National Youth Service Corps.
The amount allocated each year depends on the available funds but expectations are high that given the high inflationary trend government’s allocation to group life insurance of its workers would have been much higher than last year.
But the reverse is the case as it even allocated figure a little lower than last year’s figure. In 2024, government allocated N9.6 billion to group life insurance of its workers, in 2025 it almost doubled the figure allocating N17.31 trillion for the same purpose.
But in 2026 it lowered the figure instead of increasing it as group life insurance allocation stands at N17.3 billion for 2026 despite inflation rate.
Ebere Nwoji
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