Insurance companies in Nigerian have undergone reform in 2004 in order to enhance their performance and to make them stronger players nationally and internationally. Besides, in 2014 available statistics revealed that the performance of insurance companies in Nigeria still remains below average. The statistics further indicated that the companies contribute only 0.3% of overall GDP in 2014 in terms of the value of gross premiums written which was very minimal if compared to 16% of South African insurance contribution to GDP. This among others provides a cause for assessing the determinants of insurance companies’ performance in Nigeria. In this view, this study assessed the determinants of insurance companies’ performance in Nigeria. This study is descriptive in nature and used both primary and secondary sources of data collection. 

The secondary data for this study were obtained from the annual accounts of the insurance companies for the years 2007 to 2014. This study used Return on Assets, Return on Equity and Earnings per Share as surrogate of performance. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, multiple regression analysis was performed. In an attempt to meet the multiple regression assumptions, robustness tests were also conducted. From the result of test of hypotheses, the ANOVA tables presented the p-values for hypothesis one, two, three and four as p=0.036, p=0.000, p=0.000 and p=0.000 respectively, meaning that there is a statistically significant relationship between the study variables at the 95.0% confidence level since the p-values are less than 5% level of significance. The variables considered most significant are; equity (β=10.23), gross written premium (β=4.91), liquidity (β=0.26), leverage (β=0.04), company’s age (β=0.02), solvency (β= -0.89) and assets tangibility (β= -24.03). In the case of variables used to test the hypothesis four and rated according to their contributions are; economic factors (β=0.53), technological factors (β=0.29) and environmental factors (β=0.11). From the findings of the study, equity capital make the strongest contribution which contradicted the general opinion that Gross written premium was the major determinant of insurance companies’ performance in Nigeria. It is therefore, recommended that stakeholders in the Nigerian insurance industry in collaboration with their regulatory body; National Insurance Commission should consider further consolidation in the Nigerian insurance industry. This will help their retention capacities to underwrite big businesses and also to deepen insurance across the country. 

The negative contribution of asset tangibility to the performance of insurance companies in Nigeria validated the fact that insurance companies do not require large volume of fixed assets. What they need is to make sure that they have available funds in the event of loss suffered by anyone under their insurance policy. This will increase the number of insurance policy holders and at the same time will enhance the performance of insurance companies in Nigeria. By doing this, the contribution of the companies to the GDP will increases and continues to grow.