Insurance industry records improved compliance on returns, disclosure

Recent reforms geared at improving regulatory compliance, international best practice as well as investor confidence in the operation of insurance business is beginning to impact on overall performance of the industry.

This is becoming more visible in the manner and timeliness with which insurance companies make quarterly and annual returns of accounts to the regulator, National Insurance Commission unlike what used to happen.

Just like the banks, insurance companies now submit their quarterly and annual returns without waiting to be prompted by the regulator early enough as soon as the transaction period ends.

This development, industry watchers say is an indication of improved transparency, good corporate governance and way to building investor confidence because such information are what investors and shareholders need to take decisions on share price.

The Director Supervision, Nicholas Opara who disclosed this during the 2016 Annual Seminar organised by NAICOM for insurance correspondents in Abeokuta, Ogun State said as at March 18, 2016 it has 12 Insurance Companies have submitted their 2015 full year accounts, out of which seven has been approved, two have been reviewed and queried while three other has just been received by the commission.

He said that the insurance companies still have up to June 30, 2016 to submit their accounts

Also the Director Research, Statistics and IT, Adamu Balanti said that the commission has set June 2016 deadline for the takeoff of the issuance of identification numbers to insurance policies and also launch its portal that would warehouse the industry’s data.

According to him the unique policy identification system is to monitor and capture every single insurance policy issued by underwriters in the country.

“This system is to build an integration point for the various stakeholders involved in insurance policy issuance. Generate and provide a unique identification number for every policy issued, in order to track and provide relevant statistics on them.

“It would help develop a capacity in NAICOM to record all policies issued by Nigerian insurance companies. Ensure proper accountability of all premium returns by insurance companies, capture all businesses done by every broker through the underwriter, ensure proper accountability of all insurance levies received from brokers, provide easy access to data regarding policies issued and support analysis and policy based decision making.”

“We want to identify each individual insurance policy issued in the country; this is why we are developing, what we call – Unique Policy Identifier (UPI). With it, each insurance policy document issued in the country will have a unique identification number. The Unique number will be used to identify that document.

“We are also developing a database of that identification number, so that anybody in the country can query the database to confirm if the policy document before him or her is genuine. We are hoping that in the next few years, we will get it out,” he added.

He noted that the initiative cuts across all insurance product lines, adding that all policies procured by the public must have this unique number.

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