NEM Insurance trumps AIICO in 2025 performance
The 2025 fiscal year presented a fascinating study in contrast between two of Nigeria’s insurance titans. While AIICO Insurance PLC leveraged its massive composite structure to drive historic volumes, NEM Insurance PLC operated as a high-margin specialist, ultimately proving that efficiency can trump raw size in the race for profitability. This head-to-head comparison breaks down their test of strength across the most critical financial battlegrounds.
Revenue velocity and market scale
In terms of pure top-line muscle, AIICO Insurance asserted its dominance as the larger entity. AIICO’s insurance revenue for 2025 climbed to approximately ₦137.7 billion, a 27% increase driven by its dual-engine growth in Life and Non-Life segments.
AIICO’s vast agency network and corporate partnerships allowed it to capture a larger share of the total market pie, ending the year with total assets exceeding ₦440 billion.
NEM Insurance, however, proved to be the giant-killer in terms of growth acceleration. NEM reported a staggering 51% surge in Gross Written Premium, reaching ₦146.17 billion. While its total asset base of ₦176.6 billion is smaller than AIICO’s, NEM’s ability to generate nearly the same level of premium income as a much larger composite rival highlights its incredible efficiency in the General Insurance niche, particularly in Motor, Marine, and Oil & Gas lines.
Underwriting discipline and claims resilience
The 2025 economic climate, marked by high inflation, tested the underwriting grit of both firms.
NEM Insurance demonstrated superior technical precision; despite insurance service expenses rising to ₦84.77 billion, its insurance service result nearly doubled to ₦38.54 billion. This suggests that NEM is exceptionally skilled at pricing risk, maintaining a high-quality portfolio that yields significant profit even after claims are settled.
AIICO Insurance faced a different challenge. As a composite insurer with a heavy Life and Annuity portfolio, its claims and benefit payments are naturally higher and more long-term.
AIICO’s insurance service result showed a sharp recovery to ₦11.9 billion in 2025, a massive reversal from the prior year's drag. While AIICO is the payout king, fulfilling its promise to thousands of policyholders, its underwriting margins are traditionally thinner than NEM’s due to the high-reserve nature of the Life business.
Profitability and Shareholder returns
This is where the battle took a decisive turn. NEM Insurance, despite a 17% dip in its Profit After Tax (PAT) to ₦24.09 billion due to rising management expenses, maintained a remarkably high Return on Equity (ROE) of 28.5%. This metric far outpaces the industry average and proves that NEM remains a highly tuned lucrative machine for its investors.
AIICO Insurance, conversely, enjoyed a momentum year for its bottom line, tracking toward a PAT of ₦19.6 billion.
While this absolute figure is lower than NEM’s, it represented a 17.6% growth in normalized profit. AIICO’s strength in 2025 was its Investment Income, which surged to over ₦50 billion, primarily from its robust bond holdings.
AIICO used its massive balance sheet to earn its way to profitability, even when underwriting markets were tight.
The final verdict
While AIICO Insurance wins on Scale and Market Footprint, NEM Insurance takes the crown for Operational Excellence and Raw Earning Power.
NEM Insurance wins the 2025 test of strength because it generated a higher absolute profit (₦24.09bn vs AIICO's ~₦19.6bn) from a significantly smaller asset base.
NEM’s ability to achieve a 28.5% ROE more than double the industry average makes it the more efficient profit engine. AIICO is the reliable, massive sovereign of zcale, but in a head-to-head match of financial agility and shareholder value, NEM Insurance remains the heavyweight champion of 2025.