The outgoing Director-General, Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), Mrs. Yetunde Ilori, is expected to be the next President of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN).
In this interview, she speaks on major changes in the Nigerian insurance sector, especially the efforts made towards curbing fake insurance claims.
Can you speak briefly on the portal for verifying insurance certificates?
Before now, many things were done manually, but we have platforms that people are leveraging on to achieve whatever they need to achieve when it comes to insurance matters.
Whether verification of insurance certificates, to authenticate whether this one is genuine, or whether to make things easy. For example, we have the trade Portal through which banks can ascertain that marine certificates that people are carrying are genuine.
Before, when a customer in the banking hall presents a paper, they need to put a call across and say is this certificate issued by you? But that’s no longer the case.
Everything is uploaded onto their own trade Portal being managed by the Central Bank, and you can confirm the genuineness of the certificate that any customer is carrying.
We moved on from there to have the USSD code, working with NIBSS, to say people can verify the genuineness of the policy, and from there we moved on to the Nigeria Insurance Industry Database (NIID).
That becomes like a central thing that all enforcement agents are now using to ascertain the genuineness of the cover that people present to them. It started with motor, but it is not just motor that is there now, later, marine came on board.
Now, we have Occupier’s Liability, builders, and liability insurance. We’re now working with the National Pension Commission (PenCom) to enable them to ascertain the genuineness of cover presented to them in respect of group life.
Will you say that insurance companies have improved their capacity to carry more risks and respond to claims faster?
The Nigerian insurance companies paid N669.4 billion claims in 2023. Yes, the insurance industry has the ability to carry any risk, and I want to say that without any fear. This is because the way insurance works, at a time we saw claims payments as a major issue.
And for that reason in the course of my working here as Director General of NIA, we had to expel three companies that were not measuring up, and not responding or meeting their obligations.
We expelled them and, later the regulator withdrew the licences of two of them; but you will appreciate that it was NIA that first of all, even expelled them. This expulsion doesn’t just happen.
This will happen after we have invited them, we have given them time, we have asked them to come up with a payment plan, but where they are still not living up to their responsibility, we had no choice than to ask them to go, and we also came up with several publications asking beneficiaries of insurance policies or even claimants to come up where they have not been paid their claims, and we saw people coming up.
We also intervened in helping some people to resolve issues among our members, and so, claims figure rose, and we are beginning to earn the trust of the public.
Apart from the advert that we placed, asking people to come up with a claim, we had personality shows where we’re asking people to call, and report claims that were not being settled. We still need the public to believe in this process and believe it’s achievable.
There might be one issue or the other with companies that have lawsuits with the regulator when a case is in court, everybody’s hands are tied. But where the company is now in court, and they’re not settling your claim, we can assist and support in claim settlement.
So, claim settlement is something that we have priced as very important and this is what we want to see everybody, every company, living up to their responsibility and settling claims promptly. We would like our clients to know that there are things that they also need to do to make it easy, reporting documentation and providing the necessary details that will enable companies to pay promptly.
Are there any further developments on the Nigeria Insurance Industry Portal (NIIP)?
I want to say NIIP is a product and project that we have been working on as NIA for a long time; it wasn’t like my own initiative. It started long ago. So, NIIP, the Nigeria Insurance Industry Portal, is like an offshoot of the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database (NIID).
The first time that this came into being or that it actually became real and functional was in the year 2021, and that one is still running now. We want insurance to be accessible. Not just accessible, we want it to be easily accessible by anybody.
Sometimes when you’re talking about people buying insurance, the question comes, where do I buy? So, we see in motor insurance that fake insurances were thriving just because people didn’t know where to get it, so they go to some other places and whatever they offer them there by people that have nothing to do with insurance, they just get the paper.
But when they now have claims, that is when they realize that the company that the name is even appearing on the paper never existed in insurance, or there has been a tweak, or a company that ceases to exist.
So, the general impression by the public is that insurance companies are never certain whereas the name on the paper they were carrying does not exist to start with. We felt we needed to provide the public with an easily accessible platform secured platform, and for them to do it in the right way. Because insurance companies are set up to pay claims, and when you don’t go to the genuine source, you are carrying fake, there is no way you enjoy the service.
How can motorists access genuine insurance through the NIIP?
You can log on to that platform to buy your insurance. You have the opportunity if you have been an existing insurance buyer to pick the company that you were buying from because you can renew on the platform and you can buy as a new customer.
As an existing customer, you can go there, search for the company that you were transacting with before and then you buy and pay the right premium so that you get the right benefits.
Also, if you’re a new buyer, or a new user of insurance, whereby every insurance company that sells motor is presented to you, you can click anyone. If there’s any challenge with any of our members, you can come to this platform.
We’re a self-regulatory organization, we can call them to order, and we can bring both of you together and explain things, if you have done the right thing because there are responsibilities or there’s an obligation on the part of the buyers also to meet. So, once you meet up with your obligations, you have paid the right premium, you have chosen the right company, and honestly, you will get your claims when the need arises, no stories.
Has the NIID reduced fake motor insurance certificates on Nigerian roads?
I will say yes, but to what extent? We can do more. So now, it’s not just a question of fake, it is a question of people insuring, and this we need to work with the right agencies that need to enforce.
Ours is to sell, we are not the ones to enforce. Where it is not enforced, whatever doesn’t get measured, many times will not get done.
In Lagos State for example, without running after anybody, the state has even automated the process. You only need to pass through and there’s a camera that will catch you, and then, the next thing is, text messages will be sent to you that you are violating, you’re not carrying the right document.
So, I think it is something that the entire nation has to adopt, so that if this process is adopted across the nation, there won’t be a question of anybody running after anybody as it happens in other climes. You just get your letter that you have violated, and sometimes they ask you to appear in court. Sometimes you are just sent your fine and you’re asked to pay. Sometimes the entire vehicle is impounded.
It is not even a question of carrying fake, some people don’t even carry any paper at all. It helps the citizens of the nation because there are times you have accidents and who compensates the victims? They’re not compensated because the vehicle they were travelling in was not carrying any insurance, so they were not covered.
The families of victims are just left to carry their burden which shouldn’t be. When you look at the premium that is being paid, even though we said it was increased, Nigeria is one of the countries paying the least for insurance; the premium we are paying in the country is about the least in the region.
In fact, across the region, Nigeria has been accused by saying, ‘what you’re paying is insufficient’. But we told them that we have the number, and with the number, if everybody comes on board, it reduces the cost because you know insurance itself is a pool, it works with like law of large numbers.