emPLE Insurance Group has received Insurance Meets Tech’s inaugural innovation award for its cloud-based Data Lake platform designed to accelerate digital transformation in Nigeria’s insurance industry
emPLE Insurance Bags Innovation Honour for Data Platform Set to Transform Nigeria’s Insurance Industry
emPLE Insurance Group has received the inaugural “Most Promising Innovation Yet” award from Insurance Meets Tech (IMT) for its cloud-based Data Lake project, a digital infrastructure designed to accelerate innovation across Nigeria’s insurance industry.
The recognition was awarded for the company’s ambitious data platform, built on Microsoft’s Azure Bronze-Silver-Gold architecture to tackle one of the industry’s biggest challenges—fragmented customer information spread across policy administration, claims, customer relationship management and finance systems.
According to IMT, the platform will enable insurers to collect customer data once, govern it centrally and make it accessible across business functions through a single source of truth. The infrastructure will power Power BI dashboards, application programming interfaces (APIs), as well as artificial intelligence and machine-learning models.
The project is expected to deliver a comprehensive 360-degree customer view by integrating every interaction, from quotations and policy purchases to claims history. IMT said the platform also lays the foundation for AI-powered underwriting, real-time fraud detection, customer churn prediction, embedded insurance at the point of sale and intelligent customer service.
Although still under development, IMT said the project’s transformational potential distinguished it from every other entry assessed this year, earning it a standalone recognition instead of a place on the inaugural IMT 10 To Watch ranking.
Formerly known as Old Mutual Nigeria, emPLE Insurance Group operates through emPLE Life Assurance Limited and emPLE General Insurance Limited, providing life assurance, general insurance and credit insurance solutions across Africa.
Commenting on the inaugural IMT 10 To Watch initiative, Convener of Insurance Meets Tech and Founder/Chief Executive Officer of Creato Urban, Odion Aleobua, said the ranking reflects the growing pace of digital transformation in Nigeria’s insurance sector.
“This list shows that the transformation of the Nigerian insurance industry is gradually aligning with the growing demand for the complete digitalisation of insurance services, as required by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM). The companies featured in this inaugural 10 To Watch ranking are taking the initiative rather than waiting for the industry to evolve,” he said.
Aleobua added that the assessment framework is intended to reward innovation and encourage insurers to accelerate digital transformation, warning that the gap between industry leaders and slower adopters would continue to widen.
The IMT 10 To Watch framework assesses insurers using two equally weighted criteria: the depth of digital transformation, including technology architecture, AI adoption, automation and internal digitalisation, and market impact, which measures the reach, accessibility and relevance of digital initiatives for policyholders. Each category is scored on a 100-point scale.
Insurance Meets Tech, organised annually by Creato Urban, is Nigeria’s leading platform for collaboration between the insurance and technology sectors. Its fifth edition is scheduled for September 18, 2026, at the Balmoral Convention Centre, Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos.
