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Chuks Udo Okonta
To effectively combat insurance industry’s post recapitalisation challenges, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), just like the biblical King David, who used the right stone to knock-down Goliath the enemy of the Israelites, seemed to have selected some key weapons that would help combat issues and stabilize underwriting business having raked in billion of Naira from the ongoing recapitalisation exercise.
According to the Director, Policy and Regulation Directorate, NAICOM, Pius Agboola, the commission had made some commitments which it hopes to use in driving the industry post recapitalisation.
Unveiling the commitments recently at an even in Lagos, Agboola posited that there is no doubt that the growth potentials of insurance in Nigeria is huge, hence, NAICOM has decided to put more emphasis on market development to enable investors have value for their investment.
Agboola maintained that as a stakeholder in ensuring that investors has value for their money, NAICOM make commitment to develop and deploy appropriate framework for enforcement of compulsory insurances, information technology deployment in the insurance sector and Risk Based Supervision (RBS).
Others according to him included; appropriate and relevant distribution model; improvement in insurance awareness; better corporate governance oversight and effective collaboration with relevant sectors.
He noted that to achieve the objective, other prudential issues and market conduct and practice will be giving close attention to put companies on tract for the achievement of shareholders’ expectation.
The commission said it post recapitalisation, insurance companies will also be assessed and ranked on the quality of their service delivery to customers and the ranking will be made public to provoke healthy competition among insurers.
It noted that from the regulatory perspective, policyholders remains a key component of its primary constituency and therefore must ensure they are treated fairly and protected as enshrine in the relevant laws; while at the same time balancing the supervisory role of ensuring financial soundness and reliability of insurance institutions in the country.
“Suffice it to say that consumers are faced with challenges that may vary from one individual or entity’s experience to another while the provider is faced with constraints that may also differ from one company to the other. But there is no doubt regular interactions such as this one will amongst others foster a better understanding and synergy that will result to better services to the consumer.
“The Commission took the step in 2018 to incept this platform that will provide the most critical stakeholder in the sector which is the consumer, the opportunity to be heard and be informed first-hand on the workings of the sector. Last year’s session was adjudged to be ahuge success as critical issues affecting consumers of insuranceproducts were brought to limelight,” he said.
It maintained that the recent developments and reforms in the sector particularly, the recapitalisation exercise is a move to ensure that the industry becomes more robust in its technical competence and financial base.
It said the process is aimed at repositioning the sector for self-actualization in terms of growth and development, adding that the end result of which will be to enhance the ability of insurers to provide better protection and improved services to the customers.
