Leadership (Abuja)
Ngozi Onyeakusi
16 November 2009
Lagos — The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has reaffirmed its resolve to sanction any insurance operator or firm who engages in unprofessional conduct and unethical behaviour.
The Commissioner for Insurance, Mr. Fola Daniel, gave this warning at a three-day seminar organised by the commission for insurance correspondents in Benin City, Edo State.According to him, the commission, in its effort to bring sanity and discipline to the industry through its new programme, the Market Developmentand Restructuring Initiative (MDRI), has adopted some necessary measures aimed at positioning the industry to be one of the top 20 largest insurance markets in the world, by the year 2020.He pointed out that in the past, insurance professionals literally left the industry to half- baked managers, whom he said followed the pack of quacks in unprofessional conducts that combined to expose the industry to ridicule.Daniel noted that the commission's effort has started yielding positive results as the issue of claim settlement which actually gave the industry negative image in the past has been minimised.He stated that the commission used to record an average of 10 or more complaints in a month from the public over unmet claims obligations, adding that this was no longer obtainable as less than 12 complaints were recorded last year.
On the issue of fake insurance products and certificates, he said it is one of the major items which the commission's new initiative seeks to address, insisting that necessary measures have been put in place in order to stamp out the practice.He further explained that the revival of agency systems in the industry will not reduce the powers of brokers, but it was simply made to deepen the scope of penetration in order to fill the awareness gap that has been in existence. This, he said, would go a long way in increased insurance premium. "The basic fact remains that the brokers, who are wholesalers and retailers, who should go to the grassroots are not on ground and this calls for involving agency system in the industry," he said.On the issue of increment in the brokers' registration fees, he maintained that the commission's intention is to reduce the number of intending brokers, in order to eliminate new comers who merely want to come and cause confusion only to leave the business when it is no longer favourable to them.In his remarks, the President of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN), Mr. Sunny Adeda, described the media as a reliable partner in driving home the message of insurance to all, especially those at low income level and rural dwellers.
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