NAICOM Engages Governors’ Forum to Enhance Penetration

The Commissioner for Insurance and Chief Executive of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Mr. Olusegun Ayo Omosehin, has opened up discussions with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) in a bid to improve the level of insurance penetration in the country,.

Omosehin, who engaged the Director General of NGF, Dr. Abdulateef Shittu, at the Forum’s Secretariat in Abuja, briefed the latter on the core mandate of the Commission, which is supervising, regulating and developing the insurance sector in Nigeria.

He said the activities involve deepening the culture of insurance by getting everyone to comply with some of the Compulsory Insurances as provided in the law. He noted that at the federal level these were being driven by federal agencies, whereas at the states level the Commission needs some high level of cooperation and collaboration to drive it.

He stated that the key reason the Commission was at the NGF secretariat was to discuss how a coordinated approach can be adopted in working with the states and that the collaboration must start from engaging the NGF secretariat as policy hub for the state governors.

He said having been appointed recently, a few months back, his team were trying to see how they can address some of the issues differently from the way it has been handled in the past in order to achieve a better result.

He mentioned that the Commission chose to start with the NGF, where NAICOM could have an engagement with the secretariat and share ideas.

The CFI further stated the need for most of the laws on compulsory insurances to be domesticated by the states, sighting example with Lagos State.

He said that the fragmented approach in dealing with the states needed to be centralised and have all the states come on board, especially with respect to motor third party insurance and also to prevent revenue loss for the states in terms of IGR, while there is also need for awareness creation across the states on the value of insurance.

On his part, Shittu, while welcoming the management of NAICOM informed them that the NGF had transformed into a policy hub for the state governors and is serving as the technical and administrative arm of the Forum.