The Commissioner for Insurance Olusegun Ayo Omosehin along with the management team of National Insurance Commission NAICOM, is not relenting in pushing the frontiers of insurance across the 36 states of Nigeria and this was achieved on Friday 30th August 2024 when the team visited the secretariat of the Nigeria Governors Forum NGF to discuss a coordinated approach to integrate insurance to all levels of each state governance, businesses and resident citizens.
As part of the on going robust push up Omosehin in the first engagement with the NGF Director General Dr. Abdulateef Shittu at the NGF Secretariat in Abuja, said his team is eager to address some of the issues to pave way for insurance embrace in the states differently from the way it has been handled in the past in order to achieve a better result. Noting that as the hub of states policies in such endeavours the Commission chose to start with the NGF, to lay the foundation for engagement and share ideas.
The CFI briefed the Secretariat on the core mandate of the National Insurance Commission which is supervising, regulating and developing the Insurance sector in Nigeria and deepening the culture of insurance in the nation with the compulsory Insurances as provided in our law. He noted that at the Federal level improving insurance uptake is been driven by Federal agencies but at the states level the Commission needs similar high level cooperation and collaboration.
The CFI further stated that most of the laws on compulsory insurances could be domesticated by the states sighting. He said this has been demonstrated by Lagos State where the government has latched into this for IGR purposes. He said that the fragmented approach in tying insurance awareness knots 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 while welcoming the Management of NAICOM said that the NGF has transformed into a policy hub for all the 36 state Governors and is serving as the technical, administrative arm and a resource center that renders services and policy formulation of the Forum. Therefore he said the NGF Secretariat is a one-stop shop for any business you want to do with the states.
The Director General thanked the CFI and express optimism that the partnership would be positive and eventually deepen insurance penetration in the country.
With the formal agreement reached the NGF Secretariat noted concept was right worthy of acceptance and a joint committee would commence to deliver on the assignment at hand.
