By Sola Alabadan
The Commissioner for Insurance and Chief Executive of the National Insurance Commission, Mr. Olusegun Omosehin has called on the governors of the 36 states of the federation to domesticate the laws on compulsory insurances, just as the Lagos State has done, as part of efforts to deepen insurance penetration in Nigeria.
Omosehin made this call on Friday during a courtesy visit to the Director General of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Dr. Abdulateef Shittu in Abuja.
He said that the fragmented approach in dealing with the states needs to be centralised and have all the states come on board, especially with respect to third party motor insurance and also to prevent revenue loss for the states in terms of IGR.
He added that there is also need for awareness creation across the states on the value of insurance.
Omosehin thanked the DG for the warm welcome and briefed the secretariat on the core mandate of NAICOM, which is supervising, regulating and developing the insurance sector in Nigeria and by so doing, it considers 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 this is being 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 the commission was at the NGF secretariat is 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. Omosehin, who was appointed recently, said the commission has been trying to see how it can address some of the issues differently from the way it has 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 Director General while welcoming the management of NAICOM informed them that the NGF has transformed into a policy hub for the state governors and is serving as the technical and administrative arm of the forum.
He thanked the CFI and expressed optimism on the issue, saying 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, a joint committee was set to deliver on the assignment at hand.
