Guidelines on Insurance of Government Assets Coming Says NAICOM
L-R: Theme Speaker, Dr. Oladimeji Alo, MD Excel Professional Service Ltd, Past President, CIIN and Current Chairman MCPD Committee, Lady Isioma Chukwuma, President/Chairman of Council, CIIN, Mr. Edwin Igbiti, Deputy Commissioner for Insurance, Technical, Mr. Sabiu Bello Abubakar and the Regional Director, Africa, United Capital Plc, Mr. Kayode Tinuoye, Second Speaker at the second Edition of the CIIN Business Outlook Seminar in Lagos.
The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) said it will soon release Guidelines on insurance of government assets, adding that it is committed to sanitizing and repositioning the insurance industry in the country to respond positively to its mandate.
The Commissioner of Insurance and Chief Executive Officer of NAICOM, Olorundare Sunday Thomas made the disclosure yesterday at the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN), Second Edition of 2022 Business Outlook Seminar, in Lagos. With the theme “Economic Policies Of the Government In 2022, Issues, Challenges and Prospects,”
Thomas who was represented at the event by the Deputy Commissioner (Technical), NAICOM, Sabiu Abubakar, In his presentation titled “Regulator’s Perspective of the theme paper” (the theme paper was Economic Policies Of the Government In 2022, Issues, Challenges and Prospects), he disclosed that the Commission will soon come up with guidelines on insurance of government assets.
The guidelines , he said, will ensure adequate and appropriate insurance cover for government assets as well as “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.”
“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 ensuring sanity in the industry, he said the Commission would not hesitate to sanction any insurance company that fails to meet its contractual obligations to its customers as it did to Niger Insurance Plc and Standard Alliance Insurance Plc recently.
It should be recalled that NAICOM had recently revoked the operating licenses of Niger Insurance PLC and that of Standard Alliance Insurance Plc.
“Recently two insurance Companies licenses have been withdrawn and these are; Niger Insurance and Standard Alliance Insurance.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,” Sabiu Abubakar said.
He stated that NAICOM has strengthened its regulatory oversight and implored operators to settle genuine claims within reasonable time and discharge their contractual obligations effectively.
Abubakar noted that insurance regulation and supervision are always the bedrock of national economic development, stressing that he believed NAICOM’s reforms and regulatory initiatives will positively impact the insurance industry if achieved and that the Industry will witness tremendous development and growth.
He urged insurance practitioners to remain complaints and support the Commission’s efforts.
On International Financial Reporting Standard 17 (IFRS17), he said there is no going back by the commission on the proposed implementation of date of January, 2023.
He said 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.
Earlier in his welcome address, the CIIN President, Edwin Igbiti, noted that the Business Outlook Seminar is a forum where key players in the insurance industry as well as the finance sub-sector of the economy converge to review the business environment in the country for the immediate past year and strategise on the way forward for the insurance industry in the new year.
He 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.
According to him, the first session of the seminar was held on Wednesday, February 23, 2022 where notable speakers analysed the 2022 national budget as it relates to the Insurance industry and how the industry can reposition itself.
The objective of the second part of the programme, he said was to review what have been achieved from the first, where the operators currently are and to proffer recommendations for the rest of the year for the profitability of the industry.
He said the theme for this year’s Business Outlook remains: “Economic Policies of the Government in 2022: Challenges, Issues and Prospects”.
Igbiti expressed optimism that the second edition 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; adding that 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.
