Gender, perceived economic status and personality factors influencing attitudes to buying insurance services: a study of some selected Nigerians

This study concerns gender, perceived economic class and personality attributes as factors influencing consumers' attitudes to insurance services in Nigeria. Personality attributes studied were Type A–Type B and introversion-extraversion, which were examined as high or low. Standardized psychological scales were administered to 223 bank customers as respondents. The 2 x 2 analysis of variance (ANOVA) results showed that individuals low in Type A–Type B and introversion-extraversion measures were least favourably disposed to insurance services, while those high on type A but low on extraversion, and those low on type A but high on extraversion, were most disposed to insurance services. While 60.54% of the total respondents indicated non-ownership of insurance services, only 39.46% indicated ownership. More males than females indicated ownership, while more high economic status individuals as against low or middle economic groups indicated use. The conclusion is that there is a low rate in patronage of insurance services in Nigeria, which might be attributed to the inability of the insurance personnel to identify target patrons and adopt different marketing strategies, based on an individual's gender, economic status and personality, in marketing insurance services. Journal of Psychology in Africa 2004, 14(2): 127–13