From left: Director General, Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, Mrs. Abimbola Tiamiyu; Managing Director/CEO, Excel Professional Service Limited, Dr. Oladimeji Alo; former President of CIIN, Mrs. Isioma Chukwuma; President, Edwin Igbiti and Deputy Commissioner, Technical, National Insurance Commission, ( NAICOM), Sabiu Abubakar and President, Edwin Igbiti at the event, held today at Oriental hotel, Lagos.
*More Firms To Go Under
BY NKECHI NAECHE-ESEZOBOR– Poised to end inadequate and inappropriate insurance cover for government assets, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), on Thursday said is coming out with guidelines on insurance of government assets.
The Commissioner for Insurance, Sunday Thomas disclosed this while delivering a paper titled: “The Regulator’s Perspective of the Theme paper” at the second edition of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, (CIIN) Business Outlook Seminar, held today at Oriental hotel, Victoria Island.
The NAICOM Boss who was represented by the deputy commissioner technical, Sabiu Abubaka, said the guidelines which will be released soon, will ensure that Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs assets are full covered.
He said the commission has collaborated with Ministry of Finance, Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Head of Service, to come up with the guidelines.
He noted that the guidelines will ensure that all MDAs comply with the requirements in the guildines and failure to comply to do so, there will be sanction, even from government.”
The commission before now had complained that most assets of the Federal Government and state governments are never adequately and appropriately insured.
“It is very worrisome to the Commission that most assets and liabilities of government are never adequately and appropriately insured, which further accentuated the need for urgent measures to be put in place by the Commission to ensure that government gets value for money in the purchase of insurance by MDAs.”
On liquidation of Standard Alliance and Niger Insurance, he hinted that more companies may also face similar sanction as part of moves to sanitise the industry.
“Recently two insurance Companies licenses have been withdrawn and these are; Niger Insurance and Standard Alliance Insurance. Though managing the death/failure of Financial Institution is very demanding, nevertheless more may still be liquidated in order to sanitise the Insurance sectors,” he posited.
“We have strengthened our regulatory oversight and we implore operators to settle genuine claims in reasonable time and discharge their obligations.”
On International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS17), he said the commission is not going back on the proposed implementation of date of January, 2023.
According to him the commission has set up sub-working groups to facilitate the migration, urging board members of each insurance firm to get prepared for the IFRS 17 implementation pointing out that the deadline for migration was already at hand.
In a welcome address, the President of CIIN, Edwin Igbiti, said the programme among other things, examines the national budget, reviews the thrusts of the fiscal and monetary policies of the government and estimate how these would influence the insurance industry in particular and the economy in general.
He noted that the objective of this second part of the programme is to review what we have achieved from the first, where we currently are and to proffer recommendations for the rest of the year for the profitability of the industry.
According to him the theme for this year’s Business Outlook remains: “Economic Policies of the Government in 2022: Challenges, Issues and Prospects” will be very insightful considering the challenges bedeviling the country such as; insecurity, high inflation rate, debts, oil subsidy as well as trending matters like the the upcoming elections; even though there was a positive projection of the global industry at the beginning of the year, these issues will surely have its effect on the insurance industry and the economy in general.
While noting that ” is a great avenue for us discuss and have foresight on how to effectively manage our various businesses in the industry amidst these threats.”
