“Why do so few Nigerians buy insurance?” That question naturally follows Nigeria’s insurance penetration numbers. With a population of more than 200 million people, over 70% of Nigerians have no form of insurance as of 2025, according to the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB).
When Sim Shagaya, the entrepreneur who founded Konga, an e-commerce platform, and uLesson and Miva Open University, began looking for answers, he got the same answer: Nigerians do not believe in insurance.
Yet that explanation never fully aligned with his observations.
“It’s not that Nigerians don’t understand protection,” he told TechCabal in an interview on May 11. “The desire for protection is there. What has been lacking is the distribution of structured protection products to people who haven’t had it.”
After more than a decade of building businesses that solved access and distribution challenges, he launched Myka, a licenced digital broker that enables consumers and businesses to purchase insurance products from multiple providers.
Myka is backed by Ventures Platform, TLcom, Shola Akinlade, co-founder of Paystack; Ridwan Olalere, founder of LemFi; and Olumide Soyombo, founder of Voltron Capital, in an undisclosed pre-seed round. It launches with insurance products spanning motor, gadget, property, health, life, and travel insurance.
Opeyemi Kareem
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