Abstract
The challenges of life after retirement and the difficulties posed by loss of job, illness, disability, death and old age remain the nightmare of every employee, employer as well as the self-employed; as their economic and social welfare are most times not guaranteed. Hitherto, it has been the individual’s responsibility to maintain his or her economic and social welfare but in our present day reality and in most cases, that responsibility has been taken over by the state and forms part of the law with the aim of allaying the fear of uncertainties surrounding life after retirement. The issue of economic and social welfare of a retiree being a responsibility of the individual or that of a state notwithstanding, the most important issue is the fate of a retiree upon retirement or whenever his services are no longer needed at work or in situations of total failure or delay in payment of any sort of retirement benefit, how would the retiree cope? It is against this background that this study is geared towards examining the necessity of retirement benefits insurance (endowment) policies to be undertaking by a every reasonable selfemployed individual, civil servant or employer/state for their employees.
