Snippets for the leadership and board of NAICOM

CHUKWUMA ONONIWU

FCILRM (NG), FICRMP (U.K.), alumnus of Abia State University Lagos Business School, Pan Atlantic University, is a consummate insurance broker, insurance management consultant and digital insurance advocate. He is an i.g.i. goldcrest award winner. He can be reached on:: riskswisepro@gmail.com and +234-903-596-8732 (whatsapponly).

Congratulations to the reconstituted leadership and board of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM). Certainly, beyond the congratulatory messages from insurance stakeholders, insurance shareholders, insurance investors and stakeholders in the financial services sector of the Nigerian economy, there are tasks and targets to be set and to be achieved, to ensure that insurance, which is the whipping boy of the financial services sector of the Nigerian economy, with its abysmal contribution to the GDP of Nigeria, occupies its rightful position, taking into cognisance the population of Nigeria. 

These include, but not limited to the following: 

**The need for the establishment of a new products, personal line and retail insurance development unit, with the objective of overseeing the development of new products, personal line and e-retail insurance products, by the insurance firms, which will be pocket friendly driven, short term driven, mass retail driven and information technology driven. This is critical, taking into cognisance the key fact that insurance is predicated on the statistical law of large numbers, the probability of occurrence of an insured event, the frequency of occurrence and the severity of occurrence.

**The strengthening of the Unit in charge of Agency Operations, to ensure that the insurance penetration and the insurance density is deepened and robust, with its economic multiplier benefits with respect to aggregation of the pool of premium for investment.

**The strengthening of the Corporate Affairs/Public Affairs/Communication unit of NAICOM. Certainly, it will be healthy to have a Corporate/Public Communication Unit that will be robust to the extent that the insuring public will be given quarterly updates on claims paid in the different classes of insurance, as presently, many people have the wrong perception that claims are hardly paid.

**As a corollary to this is the need to strengthen the research and statistics unit of NAICOM. There is a need for contemporary research and contemporary statistics, driven by state of the art information technology and data analytics, which are critical in planning and development.

**NAICOM has a duty to diligently canvass to the federal government the need for reduction in the number of levies paid by insurers. Insurance firms are financially burdened and this is one of the plethora of reasons why the shares of insurance firms are penny stocks and are always up for cherry picking.

**The need to strengthen the oversight on the loss adjusting arm of the insurance sector. This is to checkmate and nip in the bud their excesses and their shortcomings, as in the ignoring of a broker’s review and input in a claim process, which leaves the insured hapless, in the event of a contentious claim discharge voucher, with its negative impact on the insurance industry. 

**The need to drain the rising tide of the invasion of the insurance ecosphere by banks. This will give insurance firms, and insurance brokerage firms that are not affiliated to any bank, the level playing ground to operate and breakeven; to make profit and to retain their staff. Going further, it will reduce the bizarre inordinate premium rate cutting, which will continuously lead to loss of income for the shareholders and investors in insurance.