Amaka Obiefuna

As part of measures to further strengthen the insurance industry in Nigeria, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has taken a hard stand on operators in the sector, giving two weeks ultimatum to Nigeria Insurers Association (NIA) to publish details on outstanding claims in prominent newspapers.

NAICOM gave this mandate during the Insurers Committee meeting which held in Lagos over the weekend.

The regulator added that any insurance company found as a defaulter would face sanctions.

According to NAICOM’s Head of Corporate Communications and Market Development, Rasaaq Salami, who addressed the meeting, the new initiative aims to facilitate policyholders in claiming their settlements.

He announced that after the two weeks deadline given to NIA for  the publication, there will be a monitoring for three months to monitor and assess improvements.

Salami stated that where there is no improvement at the expiration of three months, regulatory action may be taken.

He said: “The report from the insurance company is that some of these outstanding claims is not as if the companies are not really ready to pay, but the policy holders, some of them have not come up with the appropriate documentation to conclude on this process.

“And that is why we gave this directive from the insurance committee that it should be done.

“The other improvement and the addition today is that the NIA has been mandated to do this publication within the next two weeks for the next three months, and we will monitor and watch, take statistics of what has been done, if after three months there are no improvements then we take it up as the regulator, that is when we can now ask the insurance companies to go out there and do their publication.”

However, the NAICOM’s image maker was hopeful that the industry would achieve the long-awaited N1 trillion Gross Premium Income (GPI) target by close of the year, 2023 in line.with current industry reports.

While commending improvements made so far in the industry, he assured of progress towards finalisation of Risk-Based Supervision (RBS).

On her part, Chairman of the Publicity Sub-Committee of the Insurers Committee, Ebelechukwu Nwachukwu, harped on the significance of continuous improvement in risk-based supervision for the growth of the insurance industry and the implementation of risk-based pricing.

She said that the committee’s transformation roadmap includes proposals for increased awareness, enhanced market conduct, insurer partnerships with telecommunications and non-insurance channels, digitalization improvements, and the deepening of the talent pool within the insurance sector.

Also the Managing Director of Royal Exchange General Insurance, Nwachukwu disclosed that NAICOM has demanded self regulation to  underwriters, regarding Risk Base Supervision RBS.