Cocktail drinks are prominent at gatherings, but a cocktail of corporate mishaps create ready made corporate profile to ignore. By acts of omission or commission, some insurance companies that could have made the list approved by the regulator to continue in the transaction of insurance business failed to maintain the status quo.
The regulator, the National Insurance Commission( NAICOM), recently concluded the recapitalisation activities, issued new operating licenses first to 43 insurance and reinsurance firms and later released names of additional seven insurance firms out of the eight it said had submitted their recapitalisation documents with evidence before July 31 deadline. The firms were said to have had their papers on the tables of appointed auditors for review before the deadline and the regulator gave the auditors additional 14 days to verify their books.
Just last week, the regulator released list of seven insurance companies in addition to the initial 43 firms it released bringing to total 50 insurance and reinsurance firms declared by the regulator as fit to operate.
The Commission had marked some non -compliant firms for liquidation including NICON Insurance Limited and Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation. Sources close to the regulator cleared that firms like NICON Insurance Limited, Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation, Universal Insurance, African Alliance and others failed to meet the set requirements which included but not limited to cases of arrears of non compliance with the stipulated rules guiding operators in the insurance sector.
It was gathered that Universal Insurance was engaged in a merger talk with another insurer which at the same time simultaneously was in talk with a foreign investor and this turned out to be successful for the later and a closed door for Universal that was left in the lurch with no clear direction to follow at a time the time frame to raise the funds required was a tall order with no funds to match.
Two of the non-recapitalised firms have been enmeshed in various regulatory infractions dating back to 2019 attempted recapitalisation which was inconclusive. According to findings, one of them did not have audited financial statement since 2019. At the point of the recapitalisation exercise, the company did not have the required 2024 approved audited financial statement; therefore, its financials remained significantly outdated. It was therefore difficult for the regulator and the assigned financial advisors to make a categorical statement on the firm.
Regulatory sources said the company consistently failed to submit required monthly recapitalisation progress reports within stipulated timelines and failed to meet several other regulatory obligations.
In July 2026, NICON said a capital injection of approximately N20 billion was executed. But when it was requested to submit updated minimum capital requirement computations, identify its investor, requirement to pay capital verification fee as well as provide evidence of transfer of remittance, there was no compliance. Instead NICON held that compliance with the insurance statutory deposit obligation alone satisfied the requirements.
This is not in alignment with recapitalisation guidelines released by the regulator in September 2025, insurance statutory deposit is distinct from the recapitalisation escrow account, as both requirements serve different regulatory purposes and according to the guideline, transfer of recapitalisation proceeds into the escrow account was mandatory before verification.
Other findings show that having failed to comply with these requirements, the regulator concluded that NICON Insurance Limited did not satisfy the requirements necessary for commencement of statutory capital verification. Accordingly, no verification by any of the big four audit firms was carried out in respect of the company.
Nigeria Re’s case too is almost similar to that of NICON Insurance. In July 2026, it was gathered that the corporation notified the regulator of capital injection of ₦30 billion. The Commission immediately requested updated minimum capital requirement computations, evidence supporting the capital source, verification fee payment and evidence of transfer of the recapitalisation proceeds into the designated CBN escrow account.
According to findings, although a few documents were submitted, the corporation failed to comply with the mandatory requirement to transfer the capital injection into the CBN recapitalisation escrow account to enable verification as required by the recapitalisation guidelines .
Consequently, the regulator concluded that, its preconditions for verification were not met and classified the corporation as one of those not eligible for verification as none of the regulator’s big four audit firms conducted the statutory capital verification as such the commission was unable to admit its capital injection.
Advancing its own story in its open letter to the president published in some daily newspapers, the owner of both NICON and Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation, Jimoh Ibrahim displayed Lotus Bank cheques of N30 billion payment which he said was for Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation and N20 billion cheque of the same bank which he said was for NICON Insurance .
He accused NAICOM, the regulator of unlawfully demanding for N500 million, one percent shareholders’ funds and illegal transfer of N50 billion and payment of N180 million recapitalisation fee to the regulator.
