WorldStage Newsonline– The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has sought the partnership with the Nigeria Governor’s Forum (NGF) to deepen insurance penetration across the 36 states of the federation.
The Commissioner for Insurance and Chief Executive, NAICOM , Mr. Olusegun Ayo Omosehin disclosed these recently during his visit to the Director General of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Dr. Abdulateef Shittu at the NGF Secretariat in Abuja.
According to a statement, the Director General, while welcoming the management of NAICOM informed them that the NGF had transformed into a policy hub for the state governors and serving as the Technical and administrative arm of the Forum.
He stated that “the Forum consists of the 36 state Governors in the Federation while the Secretariat is the administrative arm and a resource center for the Forum that renders services and policy formulation. The NGF Secretariat is a one-stop shop for any business you want to do with the states.” Omosehin thanked the DG for the warm welcome and briefed the Secretariat on the core mandate of the commission “which is supervising, regulating and developing the Insurance sector in Nigeria and by so doing it involves how the culture of insurance can be deepened by getting the Nation as a whole to comply with some of the compulsory Insurances as provided in our Law.”
He noted that “at the Federal level these is been driven by Federal agencies but at the states level the Commission needs some high level of cooperation and collaboration.”
He stated that the key reason why the Commission came to 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 few months back, he and his team were trying to see how they can address some of the issues differently from the way it had 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 needs to be centralized and have all the states come on board especially with respect to motor third insurance and also to prevent revenue loss for the states in terms of IGR. There is also need for awareness creation across the states on the value of insurance.
The Director General thanked the CFI and express optimism that the now that the Commission has reached out, he believed that the partnership can bring a lot of positivity on deepen insurance penetration in the country.
The NGF Secretariat and NAICOM agreed that a concept note should be submitted for their review and since a delivery room assessment has already been conducted, the ball shall be kicked to start rolling immediately and a joint Committee was set to deliver on the assignment at hand.
