NAICOM Tasks Agents On Insurance Products Implementation

The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has advised insurance agents to drive the implementation of compulsory insurance products.

Mr Talmiz Usman, Head of Project Management Office in Marketing Development Restructuring Initiatives (MDRI) of NAICOM, gave the advice in Lagos recently at a workshop organised by the Association of Insurance Agents of Nigeria.

Usman, who spoke while delivering a paper on “Strategy for Marketing Compulsory Insurance Products,” said one of the MDRI objectives was to build confidence in the Nigerian insurance market.

He said that to achieve this objective, there was the need to promote public understanding of insurance practice.

According to him, the key drives to achieve this include restructuring the agency system, wiping out fake insurance men and sensitising law enforcement officers on compulsory insurance products.

“Compulsory insurance is that retail products and agents are close to the public. The commission is therefore relying on insurance agents to drive their implementation.

“To ensure that the present agents are different from those of yester years, the commission has set up a committee to review the agency system.

“The commission has also started registration processes to ensure that fake insurance is eradicated.

“So, now any insurance agent that is not registered is operating illegally and that amounts to criminal offence,” he said.

Usman said that the commission had overcome the hurdles of registration fees to charge as well as the criteria.

He advised agents to act as professionals and introduce products to their old and prospective clients as well as ensure that they understood products they were selling very well.

The NAICOM official said that agents should ensure that all their promises, regarding their products, were kept.

He said that the advantage of the compulsory insurance products was that they were backed by law and could be used to sell other insurance products.

Usman said that the commission would soon enlighten the police, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and the fire Service on Compulsory insurance.

He said the commission was doing this to ensure the industry played its part as stipulated in the vision 20: 2020 document.

Mr Kingsley Obuvie, president of the association, said that the aim of the workshop was to enhance the skills of the agents on ways to grow the market and add value to industry.

He said that the workshop would enable agents to tap the opportunities and strategies in compulsory insurance.

Obuvie said an independent firm could have as many as 10 to 100 agents working for it, provided that all licensing requirements of NAICOM were met.