The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), says it has found the antidote for the challenges of poor insurance penetration: public trust and confidence in insurance. A good dose is its cure for the inadequate real time statistical data of the insurance industry.
The wand that has the answers is “the efficient deployment of the portal,” says the Commissioner of Insurance, Mr. Sunday Thomas, (pictured) at the commissioning of the insurance portal today in Abuja. The journey to take down the challenges first started as e-regulation in July 2009, when the project commenced on a comprehensive computerisation that was meant to transform the Commission’s regulatory responsibilities.
This was to be done by providing a robust, “world class ICT infrastructure to help implement an automated business processes internally and for industry wide supervision via an integrated platform.”
From that humble beginning by todays new and disruptive technologies, NAICOM has come to the point of direct interface with the industry provided by the portal which the CFI assured, “will ensure greater accountability and transparency.”
“The digital platform will provide a single point of contact between NAICOM and the insurance industry,” he explained, and its presently made up of four systems: first, the policy system. It captures all insurance policies issued in Nigeria online real time via application programming interface (APIs). Second, licensing system; it automates the core business processes of registration/renewal of licenses, new products, AIP no objection & attestation approvals at NAICOM.
The third system is complaints management; the CFI said this customised system is designed to help the Commission manage complaints and handle issues seamlessly as well as ensure that insurance companies are performing highly and clients are serviced adequately. The fourth, is regulatory returns and financial analysis, it provides the platform for the submission of all insurance industry regulatory returns and compliance electronically.
