The Nigerian Insurers Association NIA, says it is committed to make members of the Association comply and pay outstanding fees owed members of the Institute of Loss Adjusters of Nigeria ILAN.
The promise to put fresh smile on Loss Adjusters dry countenance was made by the Chairman, NIA, Kunle Ahmed (left, on the featured picture with the ILAN President) as a guest of ILAN at the Loss Adjusters 42nd annual general meeting held on Thursday October 10, 2024 at ILAN House Surulere, Lagos, where he addressed the revolving issue of outstanding fees for claims already adjusted and paid to claimants. The importance he attached to it caused him to skip the scheduled paper, “Strengthening Collaboration Between Insurers and Loss Adjusters for the Growth of the Insurance Industry” and in its place focused on the strain in that collaboration in barely three minutes.
Ahmed told the attentive loss adjusters that the NIA would start by engaging each one of its members involved and have a conversation with them to put the issue of outstanding fees at rest by consequently endorsing payments to Loss Adjusters.
He explicitly said, “If need be NIA will write officially to those companies if that is required. But I can assure that I will be paying a lot of attention to that particular issue. Because if I don’t pay particular attention to that particular issue you might not be able to do everything in course of assisting us in settling claims.”
NIA concerted intervention is coming six years after NAICOM 2018 circular on “Inter Company Balances And Payment of Loss Adjusters Fee,” it demanded that underwriters shall settle its portion of a Loss Adjusters fee not later than 10 days after the submission of the Adjuster’s report to the underwriter(s.)Where a lead underwriter pays the fee on behalf of the other co-insurers, the co-insurers shall reimburse the lead their respective proportion of the fee within 5 working days of the settlement of the adjuster by the lead underwriter.”
Then transition arrangement was that “All underwriters are by this circular required to settle all outstanding Loss Adjusters fees, claims dues to lead underwriters/cedants arising from coinsurance, facultative and reinsurance transactions within 30 days from the date of this circular.”
Besides the issue of outstanding fees to Loss Adjusters, NIA Chairman also wants adjusters to be forward looking and evolve with the changing work patterns dictated by advances in technology especially generative AI. “I want to employ you as Loss Adjusters to look for ways of improving loss adjusting because if you don’t do it new start-ups will begin to position themselves to offer pre loss surveys and other services and all of a sudden you will not see those jobs being done by loss adjusters anymore and we don’t want that to happen.”
He said it would be difficult erase the human factor though, but there was an urgent need to address enhancement in several areas of the job by deploying some aspects of new tech developments.
In his response, the ILAN President, Diipo Olarenwaju, said there was need for the Loss Adjusters and their principals, the Insurers, to feel each others pulse by closing the gap because “we are far apart from each other.”
Olarenwaju said the future of insurance industry belongs “to everyone of us. We need you desperately, I am using the word ‘desperately’ because of other things involved, you too you need us. We believe that during your time all issues including the review of the 32years old scale of fees will be brought up and addressed.”
