The National Insurance Commission, NAICOM, has set in motion mechanisms to become one of the top five insurance industry regulators in the world.

The commission is striving hard to regulate the nation’s insurance industry in line with international best practice and qualitative regulation of the sector.

NAICOM wants to take a cue from countries such as Canada, Australia, India and South Africa, which are in top ranks, globally.

The Commissioner for Insurance, Mr Fola Daniel, who spoke at the just concluded 38th African Insurance Organization, AIO, in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, said that Insurance regulators must ensure that the environment is not only safe but sound so that no company attempts to commit suicide.

According to him, the objective of a regulator is to protect the insuring populace but much more than that, regulators also protect even their colleagues on the other side of the divide to ensure that they are not put behind bars in the event of a failure.

Daniel was appointed the Commissioner for Insurance/Chief Executive Officer of NICOM, at the peak of the crisis that engulfed the Nigerian insurance industry following a Ministerial Panel’s indictment and subsequent sack of his predecessor for the improper handling of the insurance industry recapitalization exercise.

Daniel was saddled with the unenviable responsibility of reforming NAICOM, the entire Insurance Industry as well as steer the industry out of crisis. Analysts believe that he has successfully executed these tasks to the admiration of all stakeholders.

Several litigations were also instituted against the Commission by major trade groups in the industry, such as the Nigerian Insurance Association, NIA Recapitalization suit and the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers, NCRIB suit, to name a few.

These suits and a host of other issues rendered the Commission virtually incapable of discharging its regulatory oversight, which somewhat, created a vacuum, poor corporate governance and management challenges in the insurance industry. These eventually culminated in a drop in the industry’s contribution to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP.

Against this backdrop, the commission had to be restructured for operational effectiveness in line with the recommendations of the Presidential Panel on the Commission’s Management. It also conducted manpower audit to identify appropriate manpower requirements and carried out a de-selection exercise. The recruitment of successful candidates was subsequently conducted to fill identified gaps. The successful implementation of this exercise resulted in far-reaching improvement on the human resource profile of the Commission. Accordingly, AICOM also strengthened the regulatory core operational departments such as the Inspectorate and Supervision directorates were strengthened to better reposition the Commission and enabled it to effectively supervise a reinvigorated insurance industry.

The Commission under Daniel’s leadership also released several guidelines on effective and efficient insurance operations, notably, the Guidelines on Annuity Business; Operational Guidelines for Insurance Institutions; Guidelines for Oil & Gas Insurance Business in Nigeria; Circular on Financial Reporting Practice by Insurance/Reinsurance Companies and Guidelines on Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism for Insurance Institutions among others.

Furthermore, the regulator also embarked on a major restructuring of the Financial Reporting Format and Accounting Practices in the industry, resulting in the subsequent release of the Revised Guidelines in 20I0, in conformity with the Nigerian Accounting Standards Board, NASB and International Finance Reporting Standards, IFRS. The new guidelines imposed stringent requirements both from the operators and their external auditors.